Maximum power point tracking of partial shaded photovoltaic array using an evolutionary algorithm: a particle swarm optimization technique

 Partial shading is one of the unavoidable complications in the field of solar power generation. Although the most common approach in increasing a photovoltaic (PV) array’s efficiency has always been to introduce a bypass diode to the said array, this poses another problem in the form of multi-peaks curves whenever the modules are partially shaded. To further complicate matters, most conventional Maximum Power Point Tracking methods develop errors under certain circumstances (for example, they detect the local Maximum Power Point (MPP) instead of the global MPP) and reduce the efficiency of PV systems even further. Presently, much research has been undertaken to improve upon them. This study aims to employ an evolutionary algorithm technique, also known as particle swarm optimization, in MPP detection. VC 2014 Author(s).

Institucionalização de práticas participativas na administração pública: caminho para democratização do poder local

This dissertation discuss the institutionalization of citizen participation in local political administration and the democratization of this administration. We take as the object of our study Niterói OP" (sharing? budget). We study the citizens projects and its implementation., focusing our attention on personal conflicts and power disputs. Our work is based on the following concepts: democracy, descentralization, citizenship, local political power and social? capital?. We verify the different procedures used by Niterói "OP" coordination in order to integrate the citizens in this process. The main concern of our work is the degree of citizen participation in local political power, therefore, we shall not discuss in details the budget itself."

Associativismo nos municípios rurais: uma alternativa de desenvolvimento local em Portalegre/RN

This work aims to study the associations as mediating the process of social change and its importance for local development. The hypothesis is that associations, but bring dynamism to the smaller cities and improve the living conditions of their members, relegated to the background social sustainability, understood this as a permanent exercise of mobilization and participation in community life. The assumptions of the study are that the practice group has influenced the processes of local development in Brazilian rural municipalities through the mediation of government programs and projects aimed at combating rural poverty require social organization for their achievement. The concept of local development in this work was rescued from studies of political economy and sociology. But the concepts of collective action and partnerships advêem studies of political participation and social development of the theory of alternative or solidarity. The party consisted of an empirical case study conducted with four associations of farmers in the municipality of Portalegre-RN. Why choose qualitative study was used the technique of semi-structured interviews with the chairmen I members of associations and other actors considered essential to understanding the study (religious leaders, local political power and chairman of the union of rural workers), a total of 20 interviews, in addition to the observations of field and documentary research in records of the.ir own organizations. The survey results show that the performance of groups of farmers are key components and determinants for the production I marketing of agricultural products and for boosting the economy, as well as security for minimum levels of citizenship. Yet we are still in a space purpose of social change, which comes to confirm the initial hypothesis of this work

Pole placement by coordinated tuning of Power System Stabilizers and FACTS-POD stabilizers

This work presents the application of the Decentralized Modal Control method for pole placement in multimachine power systems utilizing FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems), STATCOM (Static Synchronous Compensator) and UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controller) devices. For this, these devices are equipped with supplementary damping controllers, denominated POD ( Power Oscillation Damping), achieving a coordinated project with local controllers (Power System Stabilizers - PSS). Comparative analysis on the function of damping of the FACTS, STATCOM and UPFC is performed using the New England System that has 10 generators, 39 buses and 46 transmission lines. (c) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

O poder local em Presidente Prudente - SP, o comerciante e suas representações sociais

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

O dualismo partidário no período de 1966 a 1982 e sua representação local

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

No crisol das lógicas de territorialização educativa nas escolas portuguesas se frágua a ação do poder político local e das parcerias

Abordamos hermenêuticamente a descentralização e a territorialização educativa em Portugal, numa tríade de relações: ‘escola-comunidade educativa’, parceria socioeducativa e política educativa local. A intervenção do poder local na educação processa-se numa perspetiva instrumental virada para o desenvolvimento e coesão social. As autarquias são os parceiros responsáveis pela educação e os professores valorizam a relação escola-comunidade educativa, principalmente na promoção da qualidade. A relação ’escola-poder local’ efetua-se numa interação participativa dos laços redutores e promotores da administração e gestão escolar, com lógicas de ação e racionalização das parcerias.

Viemärin päässä Kotkan kaupunki : Vesiensuojelun kehitys Kymijoen itäisen päähaaran suulla 1945-1970

The focus of this thesis is the marine environmental history of the eastern part and the estuary of the Kymi river from 1945 to 1970. There is no previous research on this area from an environmentally historical perspective, nor have many of the sources here discussed been previously used. Therefore the thesis expands academic understanding of local environmental processes and protection in and around the city of Kotka and the Kymi river. The thesis falls within the methodological field of socio-political history, as the research focus is centered on the local process of establishing the nature of environmental problems and solving them. The principal assumption has been that the city of Kotka, due to its ongoing expansion, was slow to respond to environmental hazards. The Kymi river was among the most degraded bodies of water during this period. Kotka on the other hand was a major center of wood processing industry and one of Finlands major industrial ports. In the past the river and its estuary had provided ample resources for fishers. It is this contradictory use of the environment that allows one to discuss the local struggle for the correct use of the environment. Primary sources include local and city archives, environmental studies, and legal documents linked with the above. The archives of the city of Kotka and of various private associations form the core sources. Environmental studies from the research period have been dealt with as sources to the local political power struggle. Alongside with current environmental research they also provide insight into the state of the environment. Another goals has been to accumulate environmental research for a future multidisciplinary study in this area. As a final conclusion it can be said that environmental degradation was widely understood as a problem only in the 1960s. The influential role of the city of Kotka however determined the pace with which these problems were then solved.

Shear-induced enhancement of self-diffusion in interacting colloidal suspensions

We set up the generalized Langevin equations describing coupled single-particle and collective motion in a suspension of interacting colloidal particles in a shear how and use these to show that the measured self-diffusion coefficients in these systems should be strongly dependent on shear rate epsilon. Three regimes are found: (i) an initial const+epsilon(.2), followed by (ii) a large regime of epsilon(.1/2) behavior, crossing over to an asymptotic power-law approach (iii) D-o - const x epsilon(.-1/2) to the Stokes-Einstein value D-o. The shear dependence is isotropic up to very large shear rates and increases with the interparticle interaction strength. Our results provide a straightforward explanation of recent experiments and simulations on sheared colloids.

Nonlinear Differential Games-Based Impact-Angle-Constrained Guidance Law

The problem of intercepting a maneuvering target at a prespecified impact angle is posed in nonlinear zero-sum differential games framework. A feedback form solution is proposed by extending state-dependent Riccati equation method to nonlinear zero-sum differential games. An analytic solution is obtained for the state-dependent Riccati equation corresponding to the impact-angle-constrained guidance problem. The impact-angle-constrained guidance law is derived using the states line-of-sight rate and projected terminal impact angle error. Local asymptotic stability conditions for the closed-loop system corresponding to these states are studied. Time-to-go estimation is not explicitly required to derive and implement the proposed guidance law. Performance of the proposed guidance law is validated using two-dimensional simulation of the relative nonlinear kinematics as well as a thrust-driven realistic interceptor model.

About the Stabilization of a Nonlinear Perturbed Difference Equation

This paper investigates the local asymptotic stabilization of a very general class of instable autonomous nonlinear difference equations which are subject to perturbed dynamics which can have a different order than that of the nominal difference equation. In the general case, the controller consists of two combined parts, namely, the feedback nominal controller which stabilizes the nominal (i.e., perturbation-free) difference equation plus an incremental controller which completes the stabilization in the presence of perturbed or unmodeled dynamics in the uncontrolled difference equation. A stabilization variant consists of using a single controller to stabilize both the nominal difference equation and also the perturbed one under a small-type characterization of the perturbed dynamics. The study is based on Banach fixed point principle, and it is also valid with slight modification for the stabilization of unstable oscillatory solutions.

O Município na federação brasileira: limites e possibilidades de uma organização assimétrica

A federação é uma forma de Estado adotada modernamente por mais de trinta Países, e consiste numa divisão territorial do poder entre um governo central e governos locais. No Brasil, esta divisão contempla um poder local-estadual e um poder local-municipal. A federação é assimétrica quando aos entes de mesmo nível (local-estadual ou local-municipal) são atribuídos diferentes regimes jurídicos, para compensar ou equilibrar suas diversidades. O chamado federalismo fiscal estuda as receitas e despesas dos entes que integram um Estado federal. No Brasil, sempre se adotou a simetria entre os municípios. Após a análise da posição do município brasileiro na questão fiscal (receitas, encargos e formas de redistribuição de recursos), identificam-se quatro pontos passíveis de mudança normativa, para seu aperfeiçoamento: brecha vertical, guerra fiscal, critérios para criação de municípios e regiões metropolitanas. As propostas formuladas na tese são: a mudança do paradigma da simetria, instituindo-se um regime especial para os municípios com população inferior a dez mil habitantes; a proibição de que sejam criados novos municípios com este porte; novos critérios e procedimentos para criação de municípios; instituição de um conselho de municípios, junto ao Senado Federal; nova forma de rateio do fundo de participação dos municípios, com a criação do fundo de participação das regiões metropolitanas; a serem criadas pela União e geridas através de conselhos formados pelos municípios e Estados-membros participantes, na proporção de sua população, área e economia.

IQ Imbalance in Multiuser Systems: Channel Estimation and Compensation

In this paper, we consider the uplink of a single-cell multi-user single-input multiple-output (MU-SIMO) system with in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI). Particularly, we investigate the effect of receive (RX) IQI on the performance of MU-SIMO systems with large antenna arrays employing maximum-ratio combining (MRC) receivers. In order to study how IQI affects channel estimation, we derive a new channel estimator for the IQI-impaired model and show that the higher the value of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) the higher the impact of IQI on the spectral efficiency (SE). Moreover, a novel pilot-based joint estimator of the augmented MIMO channel matrix and IQI coefficients is described and then, a low-complexity IQI compensation scheme is proposed which is based on the
IQI coefficients’ estimation and it is independent of the channel gain. The performance of the proposed compensation scheme is analytically evaluated by deriving a tractable approximation of the ergodic SE assuming transmission over Rayleigh fading channels with large-scale fading. Furthermore, we investigate how many MSs should be scheduled in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with IQI and show that the highest SE loss occurs at the optimal operating point. Finally,
by deriving asymptotic power scaling laws, and proving that the SE loss due to IQI is asymptotically independent of the number of BS antennas, we show that massive MIMO is resilient to the effect of RX IQI.

La sous-traitance « boomerang » : l’influence des relations industrielles sur l’internalisation d’activités manufacturières confiées en sous-traitance

Au cours de la dernière décennie, le secteur manufacturier québécois a subi d’importantes transformations. La mondialisation ayant amené les entreprises à restructurer leurs activités, 96% des établissements manufacturiers québécois ont choisi d’avoir recours à la sous-traitance (Jalette, 2004). Or, nous savons que l’octroi de contrats en sous-traitance est un processus qui se révèle parfois décevant pour les entreprises. En raison de l’évolution de certains facteurs organisationnels internes ou externes qui contribue à changer le contexte au sein duquel les décisions de sous-traitance avaient été prises initialement (ex. : augmentation des coûts de main-d’œuvre et de transport, changements technologiques), il arrive que les entreprises renversent les décisions de sous-traitance par une décision d’internalisation (OCDE, 2013). Le concept d’internalisation réfère ici à l’action d’une entreprise de ramener vers un établissement des activités de production qui avaient été antérieurement transférées en dehors de celui-ci, et ce, que ce soit en raison d’une sous-traitance d’activités à une entreprise indépendante ou d’une délocalisation au sein d’un autre établissement de l’entreprise (Jalette & Chevance, 2008). La présente étude a pour objectif d’expliquer la décision managériale d’internalisation par le biais des dynamiques sociales inhérentes aux relations industrielles, en allant au-delà des seuls facteurs économiques. L’effet sur l’internalisation de quatre variables indépendantes liées aux relations industrielles est étudié, soit la capacité stratégique du syndicat local, la solidarité interne de l’acteur syndical local et sa solidarité externe, ainsi que le climat des relations patronales-syndicales. La typologie des positions syndicales de Jalette (2005), le modèle des ressources de pouvoir syndicales de Lévesque et Murray (2003) et les travaux de Dastmalchian (2008) traitant du climat des relations industrielles constituent le cadre théorique de cette recherche. La présente étude utilise des données recueillies dans le cadre d’une enquête par questionnaire réalisée en 2005 auprès de présidents de syndicats locaux affiliés à la CSD et à la FTQ qui œuvrent dans le secteur manufacturier québécois. L’étude révèle que 24% des syndicats locaux sondés ont vécu l’internalisation d’activités antérieurement sous-traitées dans les deux années précédentes au sondage. De plus, les résultats sont à l’effet que les chances d’internalisation d’activités augmentent lorsque plusieurs stratégies et actions visant l’internalisation sont adoptées par le syndicat local, lorsque la vie syndicale d’un syndicat local s’améliore et lorsque le temps de libération syndicale d’un syndicat local augmente. Toutefois, les chances d’internalisation d’activités diminuent lorsque le rapport de force d’un syndical local augmente. L’internalisation d’activités diminue également lorsque le climat des relations du travail se détériore. Bref, les résultats de cette recherche montrent que les syndicats n’ont pas qu’à subir la mondialisation et que, par leurs actions, ils sont à même d’en influencer le cours, notamment en favorisant l’internalisation d’activités antérieurement confiées en sous-traitance.