Data mining contributions to characterize MV consumers and to improve the suppliers-consumers settlements

This paper deals with the establishment of a characterization methodology of electric power profiles of medium voltage (MV) consumers. The characterization is supported on the data base knowledge discovery process (KDD). Data Mining techniques are used with the purpose of obtaining typical load profiles of MV customers and specific knowledge of their customers’ consumption habits. In order to form the different customers’ classes and to find a set of representative consumption patterns, a hierarchical clustering algorithm and a clustering ensemble combination approach (WEACS) are used. Taking into account the typical consumption profile of the class to which the customers belong, new tariff options were defined and new energy coefficients prices were proposed. Finally, and with the results obtained, the consequences that these will have in the interaction between customer and electric power suppliers are analyzed.

Friendly Settlements in the Framework of the Inter- American Human Rights System

The Inter-American system for the protection of human rights provides that disputesbetween States and victims of human rights violations or their representatives can beresolved through a friendly settlement. In this arrangement, conducted before the regionalorgans of protection of human rights, the State accepts its international responsibility,commits itself to investigate and judge the responsible and makes commitmentson compensation to the offended, the victims, on his part, renounce to take the caseto the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Inter-American Commissionmonitors the legal consistency of the agreement and holds the role of independentobserver. What are these agreements, what possibilities and limitations provide to theopposing parties and, above all, what kind of reparation offer to victims of humanrights violations are issues to resolve in this article.

Rural Settlements.

Asentamientos rurales es una materia que suministra temas actualizados para estudiantes de AS/A nivel de geografía. La mitad de la población mundial vive en asentamientos clasificados como rurales. En muchas áreas continúan suministrando servicios vitales a poblaciones rurales; por otro lado, los cambios recientes han sido tan dramáticos que su sostenibilidad socio-económica se ve amenazada. Este libro examina las características del asentamiento rural y la evolución de los patrones de asentamiento a través del tiempo. Las ideas están ilustradas con una variedad de mapas, diagramas estadísticos y fotografías.

The re-urbanization of the city center of Manaus , Brazil - Facing the challenges of informal settlements

Illegal occupation of urban land in Brazil is a widespread phenomenon. Slum dwellers are excluded from the attributes of urban citizenship although they provide the labor force required by low productivity urban services needed by cities. Illegal settlements generate multiple problems for the rest of the city . Its solution is of key relevance to the city in general but also provide an opportunity for the social and economic advancement of slum dwellers. The programs required to attain these results are complex and difficult to implement underscoring the challenges countries will face to attain the Millennium Development Goals of reducing the population living in slums.

POST-MIDDENISM: DEPOSITIONAL HISTORIES ON LATER BRONZE AGE SETTLEMENTS AT BROOM, BEDFORDSHIRE

This paper considers recent discussions of 'deliberate', 'formal', 'placed', 'special', 'structured', or 'token' deposits on later prehistoric settlements in Britain. It argues that while these concepts have certainly been very important in raising and forefronting the interpretative possibilities that depositional practices might offer, the idea of structured deposition has, at times, been adopted and applied somewhat simplistically. In such instances, exploration of the potential complexity and interpretative scope of depositional histories on later prehistoric settlements has been substantially curtailed. Current understandings of depositional practices involving pottery and burnt human bone are examined, and alternative interpretations offered, through a case study of the evidence recovered from a series of later Bronze Age settlements at Broom Quarry, Bedfordshire.

The rise and fall of urban squatter settlements in Santiago de Chile

The thesis examines the forces at work that resulted in the proliferation in the 1950s-60s, and then the subsequent decline, in the number of urban squatter settelements in Santiago, Chile. A feature of the work is the fieldwork investigation on the material conditions within the squatter settlements households.

Duplicating road patterns in South African informal settlements using procedural techniques

The formation of informal settlements in and around urban complexes has largely been ignored in the context of procedural city modeling. However, many cities in South Africa and globally can attest to the presence of such settlements. This paper analyses the phenomenon of informal settlements from a procedural modeling perspective. Aerial photography from two South African urban complexes, namely Johannesburg and Cape Town is used as a basis for the extraction of various features that distinguish different types of settlements. In particular, the road patterns which have formed within such settlements are analysed, and various procedural techniques proposed (including Voronoi diagrams, subdivision and L-systems) to replicate the identified features. A qualitative assessment of the procedural techniques is provided, and the most suitable combination of techniques identified for unstructured and structured settlements. In particular it is found that a combination of Voronoi diagrams and subdivision provides the closest match to unstructured informal settlements. A combination of L-systems, Voronoi diagrams and subdivision is found to produce the closest pattern to a structured informal settlement.

Fair contest or elite sponsorship? Entry settlements in Australian higher education

Significant change to Australian higher education occurred between March, 1987 and March, 1996, under the direction of a Federal Labor Government. At one level, the period witnessed an increase in the provision of higher education and variation in the criteria used to grant student entry. Such change represented a crisis in higher education's traditional or 'qualified-entry' settlement which led to its resettling around a more 'diversified-entry' arrangement. The organising logic of this diversified-entry was characterised by the discourses of 'contest' (fairness in competition) rather than 'sponsorship' (selection by association), although the latter appears to have been just better 'hidden'.

Artificial neural network analysis of twin tunnelling-induced ground settlements

In this paper, we apply a computational intelligence method for tunnelling settlement prediction. A supervised feed forward back propagation neural network is used to predict the surface settlement during twin-tunnelling while surface buildings are considered in the models. The performance of the statistical neural network structure is tested on a dataset provided by numerical parametric studies conducted by ABAQUS software based on Shiraz line 1 metro data. Six input variables are fed to neural network model for predicting the surface settlement. These include tunnel center depth, distance between centerlines of twin tunnels, buildings width and building bending stiffness, and building weight and distance to tunnel centerline. Simulation results indicate that the proposed NN models are able to accurately predict the surface settlement.