Training Load Monitoring Algorithms on Highly Sub-Metered Home Electricity Consumption Data

The growing interest in energy-efficient buildings is driving changes in investment, design, and occupant behavior. To better focus cost and resource conservation efforts, electricity consumption feedback can be used to provide motivation, guidance, and verification. Disaggregating by end-use helps both consumers and producers to identify targets for conservation. While hardware-based sub-metering is costly and labor-intensive, non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) is capable of gathering detailed energy-use data with minimal equipment cost and installation time. However, variations in measurements between metering devices complicate the process of compiling the necessary appliance profiles. Future work involves the devel-opment of NILM algorithms using sensor fusion and detailed appliance-level data gathered from a highly-sensed house currently being constructed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Costs and Benefits of Smart Grids on Liberalized Markets

The discussion about smart grid （SG） implementation is mostly focused on pilot projects. These projects are necessary for mapping of particular technical devices of advanced metering management （AMM） which is needed for successful SG and whole functional SG system operation. According to our opinion, for the next step of SG implementation, the participation of effective market design would be quite necessary. In other words, pilot project which is operated regardless to the market conditions and special SG tariff is incomplete and could be irrelevant for further evaluation of feasibility. With regard to above mentioned facts, the detailed cost-benefit-analysis （CBA） is needed to establish the correct methodology for evaluation of SG implementation effectiveness. Related aspects are mentioned and discussed in this paper, in which the particular cost and benefits as well as feedback that occurs as the reaction on implementation are summarized and quantified.

Consistency analysis of accelerated degradation mechanism based on gray theory

A fundamental premise of an accelerated testing is that the failure mechanism under elevated and normal stress levels should remain the same. Thus, verification of the consistency of failure mechanisms is essential during an accelerated testing. A new consistency analysis method based on the gray theory is pro- posed for complex products. First of all, existing consistency ana- lysis methods are reviewed with a focus on the comparison of the differences among them. Then, the proposed consistency ana- lysis method is introduced. Two effective gray prediction models, gray dynamic model and new information and equal dimensional （NIED） model, are adapted in the proposed method. The process to determine the dimension of NIED model is also discussed, and a decision rule is expanded. Based on that, the procedure of ap- plying the new consistent analysis method is developed. Finally, a case study of the consistency analysis of a reliability enhancement testing is conducted to demonstrate and validate the proposed method.

Planting uniformity performance of motor-driven maize precision seeding systems

Low accuracy planting uniformity affects yield.Seed meter type and forward speed typically interfere with the planting uniformity accuracy of motor-driven seeding systems.Two types of maize precision planters equipped with motor-driven planting systems are investigated in this study to ascertain the rule of planting uniformity in both simulated and field speeds.The simulated speed increases from 5 to 12 km/h at a 1 km/h interval in a laboratory environment.The test results show that the quality of feed index(QTFI)of the two planters decreased by 16.79%and 9.88%.This is primarily attributed to the increase in the miss index(MISS)by 11.62%and 9.70%,respectively.The field speed was set to four levels from 5 to 12 km/h in a field environment.The plant spacing scatter distribution results were analyzed,and the results of the two planters indicated that the average positive difference of the two planters linearly increased with the forward speed,and the negative difference of the two planters did not exhibit a linear correlation.The number of positive moving average points was 2.49 times greater than that of the negative moving average points of the finger pick-up maize precision planter,and 4.49 times in the air-suction maize precision planter.The results indicated that the increase of the positive difference of plant spacing is the major effect factor in the field planting uniformity of the two motor-driven maize precision planters.In addition,the plant spacing corresponded to the distribution frequency of the two planters in field was close to the target seed spacing of 25 cm with a max coefficient of variation(CV)of 21.55%and 20.66%,respectively,and those plant spacing values corresponded to max distribution frequency of the two planters at the four level field speeds were(24.69±0.63)cm and(25.63±0.32)cm,respectively.However,the multiples index(MUL)changed randomly affected by the increasing speed.The research results provide a direction for the optimization design of motor-driven maize precision planters.