Sharif Digital Repository

The effect of up velocity and influent COD concentration on the activity of sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in UASB reactors is discussed. To study these effects, four UASB reactors were built and utilized in parallel. Examinations were carried out in two different concentrations of molasses (500 mg COD/l and 1000 mg COD/l) and four different upward flow velocities. It was observed that at velocities greater than 1 m/h, SRB bacteria were easily washed out from the reactors due to lower density and lack of ability to form dense and firm granules. It was found that in low-strength wastewaters with a COD to sulphate ratio of 2, an upward velocity in the range of 1.5-2.5 m/h could be... 

In this paper two novel search methods for solving optimal power flow (OPF) have been presented and compared. Electricity is undergoing a restructuring process, moving from integrated environment towards deregulation and reduced regulation all around the world. Electrical energy markets are going to be created as a consequence of this process. In order to meet technical issues, system operator would need to apply some ancillary services. Reactive power is one of the most important ancillary services, which should be injected to power network in order to decrease the total loss and control the voltage profile. The main goal of this study is to present a method based on a Locational Marginal... 

Day-to-day variation in the travel times of congested urban transportation networks is a frustrating phenomenon to the users of these networks. These users look pessimistically at the path travel times, and learn to spend additional time to safeguard against serious penalties that await late arrivals at the destinations. These additional expenses are charges similar to the tolls in system equilibrium flow problem, but may not be collected. With this conjecture, the user equilibrium (UE) formulation of congested network flow problem would lack some necessary factors in addressing appropriate path choices. This study, following a previous work proposing pessimistic UE (PUE) flow, aims to show... 

This paper presents and utilizes an Improved Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (IPSO) for reactive power management in restructured power systems. Reactive power procurement is modeled as a Security Constraint Optimal Power Flow (SCOPF), which incorporates a voltage stability problem. This is a major concern in power system control and operation. The model attempts to minimize the cost of reactive power procurement and energy losses as a main objective, while the technical criteria and voltage stability margin, especially, are treated as soft constraints. From a mathematical point of view, the reactive power market can be expressed as a nonlinear non-convex optimization problem with... 

A continuous growth in nonlinear loads may cause an increment in harmonic distortion and some other important problems in power systems so considering power quality effects in optimal reactive power planning has become more crucial than before. In this paper, optimal reactive power planning based on voltage profile deviation and voltage THD decrement is studied. The planning problem is studied using reactive power injection in each bus bar and genetic algorithm is also used for solving optimization problem. Obtained results for 5-bus and 30-bus IEEE standard networks are also presented. ©2004IEEE  

In this paper, a new algorithm for solving the shortest loop design problem is presented. The shortest loop design problem is to find the shortest loop for an automated guided vehicle covering at least one edge of each department of a block layout. In this paper, first it is shown that this problem can be represented as a graph model. The properties of the presented model enable us to design a meta-heuristic based on ant colony system algorithm for solving the shortest loop design problem. Computational results show the efficiency of our algorithm in compare to the other techniques  

The participants in auction-based electricity markets need to take part in a competition way which operates based on the concept of supply and demand theory to buy or sell the electricity. However, to have a feasible market solution, reactive power services are necessary to support the transmission of power from generation to end-users. This paper presents a methodology for optimal reactive power procurement, consistent with the auction-based electricity market mechanism. The proposed reactive power market is run in subsequence of the primary electricity market, allowing active power modification in light of available transmission capacity and reactive power resources. The IEEE 30-bus test... 

The participants in auction-based electricity markets need to take part in a competition way, which operates, based on the concept of supply and demand theory to buy or sell the electricity. However, to have a feasible market solution, reactive power services are necessary to support the transmission of power from generation to end-users. This paper presents a methodology for optimal reactive power procurement, consistent with the auction-based electricity market mechanism. The proposed reactive power market is run in subsequence of the primary electricity market, allowing active power modification in light of available transmission capacity and reactive power resources. The IEEE 30-bus test... 

In Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, although taking an active role to guide particles moving toward optimal solution, the most-fit candidate does not have a guide itself and only moves along its velocity vector in every iteration. This may yield a noticeable number of agents converge into local optima if the guide (i.e. the most fit candidate) agent cannot explore the best solution. In this paper, an attempt is made to get the advantage of the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) methodology to assist the PSO algorithm for choosing a proper guide for each particle. This will strengthen the PSO abilities for not getting involved in local optima. As a result, we present a promising new... 

The current study describes design and synthesis of silica-coated zinc oxide nanoparticles containing Ponceau 4R food colorant (named as ZnO@SiO2@APTMS/P4R). The interactions of Ponceau 4R and ZnO@SiO2@APTMS/P4R with calf thymus-DNA were investigated It should be noted that the competitive binding experiment revealed that both Ponceau 4R and ZnO@SiO2@APTMS/P4R could release Hoechst 33258. As inferred from the results the binding of the Ponceau 4R and ZnO@SiO2@APTMS/P4R with DNA were surface binding, mainly due to groove binding. Furthermore, antibacterial properties of ZnO, Ponceau 4R and ZnO@SiO2@APTMS/P4R samples against gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria were examined and...