In this paper, we develop a simple algorithm to determine the required number of generating units of wind-turbine generator and photovoltaic array, and the associated storage capacity for stand-alone hybrid microgrid. The algorithm is based on the observation that the state of charge of battery...

The security of both technical and trade credit factors becomes a serious bottleneck that affects the current development of e-business. Honest behavior is one of the important aspects of trade credit safety. It is a vital step to establish and maintain a safe credit system. In this paper, we...

Here we demonstrate thermal energy storage cement mortar (TESCM) fabricated by integrating ordinary cement mortar with a composite phase change material (PCM) based on n-octadecane and expanded graphite (EG). The mass percentage of n-octadecane in the composite PCM can reach as high as 90% due...

Improper operating temperature will degrade the performances of electronic components, Li-ion batteries and photovoltaic (PV) cells, which calls for a good thermal management system. In this paper, specific attention is paid to the thermal management systems based on the phase change materials...

Customer satisfaction index (CSI) is an important concept for evaluating the quality of service in e-commerce. It permits to evaluate the validity of an e-commerce operation from the point of view of consumers. In this paper, we present a model of CSI in e-commerce using fuzzy techniques and...

Background:Background: Preference-based health state utilities are required for many health economic evaluations. When the direct evidence of such is lacking and only condition-specific scores are available, establishing a 'mapping' relationship between instruments can be useful. Abstract:...

Findings suggest that EQ-5D utilities or item responses could be estimated on the basis of NP scores. Independent testing of the external validity of the mapping algorithms developed herein is encouraged. </AbstractSection> Copyright Springer International Publishing AG 2012

Drought is one of the major natural disasters in the Loess Plateau of China. We aimed to reveal drought occurrence regularity, relations between different magnitudes of drought and precipitation intensity changes. Based on Chinese climate divisions and digital elevation model graphs of the Loess...

This paper studies both the average sample-path reward (ASPR) criterion and the limiting average variance criterion for denumerable discrete-time Markov decision processes. The rewards may have neither upper nor lower bounds. We give sufficient conditions on the system’s primitive data and...

This paper studies both the average sample-path reward (ASPR) criterion and the limiting average variance criterion for denumerable discrete-time Markov decision processes. The rewards may have neither upper nor lower bounds. We give sufficient conditions on the system’s primitive data and...