This book offers broad, detailed coverage of theoretical developments in induction and direct resistance heating and presents new material on the solution of problems in the application of such heating. The physical basis of induction and conduction heating processes is explained and electromagnetic phenomena in direct resistance and induction heating of flat workpieces and cylindrical bodies are examined in depth. The calculation of electrical and energetic characteristics of induction and conduction heating systems is then thoroughly reviewed. The final two chapters consider analytical solutions and numerical modeling of problems in the application of induction and direct resistance heating, providing industrial engineers with the knowledge needed in order to use numerical tools in the modern design of installations. Other engineers, scientists and technologists will find the book to be an invaluable reference that will assist in the efficient utilization of electrical energy.

The International Congress on Energy Efficiency and Energy Related Materials (ENEFM2013) was held on 9-12 October, 2013. This three-day congress focused on the latest developments of sustainable energy technologies, materials for sustainable energy applications and environmental & economic perspectives of energy. These proceedings include 63 peer reviewed technical papers, submitted from leading academic and research institutions from over 23 countries, representing some of the most cutting edge research available. The papers included were presented at the congress in the following sessions: General Issues Wind Energy Solar Energy Nuclear Energy Biofuels and Bioenergy Energy Storage Energy Conservation and Efficiency Energy in Buildings   Economical and Environmental Issues Environment Energy Requirements Economic Development   Materials for Sustainable Energy Hydrogen Production and Storage Photovoltaic Cells Thermionic Converters Batteries and Superconductors Phase Change Materials Fuel Cells Superconductors

A timely guide using iterative learning control (ILC) as a solution for multi-agent systems (MAS) challenges, showcasing recent advances and industrially relevant applications * Explores the synergy between the important topics of iterative learning control (ILC) and multi-agent systems (MAS) * Concisely summarizes recent advances and significant applications in ILC methods for power grids, sensor networks and control processes * Covers basic theory, rigorous mathematics as well as engineering practice

Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning is based on the 8th International Symposium of the same name (ISHVAC2013), which took place in Xi’an on October 19-21, 2013. The conference series was initiated at Tsinghua University in 1991 and has since become the premier international HVAC conference initiated in China, playing a significant part in the development of HVAC and indoor environmental research and industry around the world. This international conference provided an exclusive opportunity for policy-makers, designers, researchers, engineers and managers to share their experience. Considering the recent attention on building energy consumption and indoor environments, ISHVAC2013 provided a global platform for discussing recent research on and developments in different aspects of HVAC systems and components, with a focus on building energy consumption, energy efficiency and indoor environments. These categories span a broad range of topics, and the proceedings provide readers with a good general overview of recent advances in different aspects of HVAC systems and related research. As such, they offer a unique resource for further research and a valuable source of information for those interested in the subject. The proceedings are intended for researchers, engineers and graduate students in the fields of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), indoor environments, energy systems, and building information and management. Angui Li works at Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Yingxin Zhu works at Tsinghua University and Yuguo Li works at The University of Hong Kong.

Electricity Economics: Production Functions with Electricity studies the production output from analyzing patterns of electricity consumption. Since electricity data can be used to measure scenarios of economic performance due to its accuracy and reliability, it could therefore also be used to help scholars explore new research frontiers that directly and indirectly benefits human society. Our research initially explores a similar pattern to substitute the Cobb–Douglas function with the production function with electricity to track and forecast economic activities. The book systematically introduces the theoretical frameworks and mathematical models of economics from the perspective of electricity consumption. The E-GDP functions are presented for case studies of more than 20 developed and developing countries. These functions also demonstrate substantial similarities between human DNA and production functions with electricity in terms of four major characteristics, namely replication, mutation, uniqueness, and evolution. Furthermore, the book includes extensive data and case studies on the U.S., China, Japan, etc. It is intended for scientists, engineers, financial professionals, policy makers, consultants, and anyone else with a desire to study electricity economics as well as related applications. Dr. Zhaoguang Hu is the vice president and chief energy specialist at the State Grid Energy Research Institute, China. Zheng Hu is a PhD candidate at the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, University of Delaware, USA.

The construction industry is the largest single waste producing industry in the UK. Ensuring a supply chain of recycled materials affords many potential gains, achieved through: reducing the material volume transported to already over-burdened landfill sites, possible cost reductions to the contractor/client when considering the landfill tax saved and the potential for lower cost material replacements, a reduction in the environmental impact of quarrying and the saving of depleting natural material resources. Reuse of Materials and Byproducts in Construction: Waste Minimization and Recycling addresses use of waste and by products in the construction industry. An over view of new "green" design guides to encourage best practice will be examined and current legislation that channels on site practices, such as site waste management plans. Fundamental individual construction materials are discussed and the process of reforming by products and waste products into new construction materials is investigated, examining the material performance, energy required to convert waste into new products and viability of recycling. The main range of constructional materials will be examined. Aimed at postgraduate students, lecturers and researchers in construction and civil engineering, the book will also be of interest to professional design practices.

This book describes scalable and near-optimal, processor-level design space exploration (DSE) methodologies. The authors present design methodologies for data storage and processing in real-time, cost-sensitive data-dominated embedded systems. Readers will be enabled to reduce time-to-market, while satisfying system requirements for performance, area, and energy consumption, thereby minimizing the overall cost of the final design.

Interest in biofuels began with oil shocks in the 1970's, but the more rapid development and consumption of biofuel industry in recent years has been primarily driven by mandates, subsidies, climate change concerns, emissions targets and energy security. From 2004 to 2006, fuel ethanol grew by 26% and biodiesel grew by 172%. As biofuel production continues to expand, investments in capacity expansion and research and development have been made. The 2008 food crisis emphasized the need to re-examine biofuel consequences. Biofuels remain an important renewable energy resource to substitute for fossil fuels, particularly in the transportation sector, yet biofuels' success is still uncertain. The future of biofuels in the energy supply mix relies on mitigating potential and improving the environmental gains. This book brings together leading authorities on biofuel from the World Bank to examine all of the impacts of biofuel (economic, social, environmental) within a unified framework and in a global perspective, making it of interest to academics in agricultural and environmental economics as well as industry and policy-makers.

This book analyses solar-assisted ground-source heat pump systems, a technology meant for producing heating and cooling energy for buildings. It focuses on ground source heat pump, reversible central heating and cooling system that transfer heat from or to the ground, applications which use solar thermal collectors. Providing deep insights into energy-saving, solar thermal system operating strategies, it illustrates examples of useful configurations and controlling approach for different climates for different vertical ground heat exchanger depths. Offering an overview of solar assisted ground source heat pump systems, including design principles and energy-performance data for different climates, it is a valuable resource for designers and scientists who focus on building heating and cooling technologies.

This book provides important information and recent advances on membranes for energy production. It starts from the history of membrane science and technology, fundamentals of membrane technology including principles of membrane formation and principle behind, followed by introducing the gas separation using membrane technology, membranes for ion transport or separation realized in energy generation and storage, and power generation, and concludes the future direction and outlook of the membrane technology in energy application and industry. It will benefit the reader not only on the application of membranes in energy industry, but also on the principles or theories behind this important application including the transport of small molecules such as gas, ion and water.

This book is aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of recent developments in sustainability science and engineering. The book focuses on principles and practices and presents 18 interwoven chapters on four major themes: design for sustainability; sustainability metrics and analysis; sustainable energy; and sustainable supply/value. Significant, state-of-the-art work, methodologies, practices and plans are presented by researchers, technology developers and industry leaders. Topics discussed include: life cycle assessment; product end-of-life options; practical approaches to sustainability; environmental footprint assessment; biofuels; and sustainable supply chain management.

This book provides a valuable resource for anyone who wishes to understand how sustainable use of energy can lead to increased efficiency of industrial supply chains and improved financial profitability. The book is organized around real examples and case studies that can be applied to real-world problems. Furthermore, insight is provided by an international panel of contributors, and the book provides comprehensive coverage of current practice and future developments in the evolution of sustainable supply chains and energy consumption. The text underlines how organizations are now looking seriously at supply chain assets in order to help their suppliers retool and focus on renewable energy. Renewable energy technology is a fast growing market with promising financial returns and substantial environmental gains; this book shows how the right management of renewable investments can have significant advantages by: * providing critical opportunities in driving costs down and making renewable energy sources more competitive with conventional energy; * making infrastructure expansion easier; * increasing employment in manufacturing and services supply chains in order to support renewable energy generation; and * mitigating the impacts of climate change. This book is intended for business professionals, researchers and students working in supply chain management or energy management.

The nanotech revolution waits for no man, woman...or child. To revitalize science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) performance, the U.S. educational system requires a practical strategy to better educate students about nanoscale science and engineering research. This is particularly important in grades K-12, the effective gestation point for future ideas and information. Optimize your use of free resources from the National Science Foundation The first book of its kind, Nanoscience Education, Workforce Training, and K-12 Resources promotes nano-awareness in both the public and private sectors, presenting an overview of the current obstacles that must be overcome within the complex U.S. educational system before any reform is possible. It's a race against time-and other countries-and the fear is that U.S. students could lag behind for decades, with ineffective teaching and learning methods handicapping their ability to compete globally. Focusing on the application of new knowledge, this concise and highly readable book explores the transdisciplinary nature of nanoscience and its societal impact, also addressing workforce training and risk management. Illustrating the historical perspective of the complexity of K-12 education communities, it defines nanotechnology and evaluates pertinent global and national landscapes, presenting examples of successful change within them. This book is composed of four sections: Foundations-addresses the national educational matrix, exploring the scientific and social implications associated with the delay in adopting nanoscience education in public schools Teaching Nanotechnology-discusses the critical process of teaching K-12 students the skills to understand and evaluate emerging technologies they will encounter Nanoscience Resources and Programs-provides a wide overview of the resources offered by funded outreach programs from universities with nanoscience centers Framework Applied-analyzes the structure of national government programs and skill level recommendations for nanoeducation from the National Nanotechnology Initiatives This book offers plans of action and links to sustainable (largely free) development tools to help K-12 students acquire the skills to understand and evaluate emerging technologies. Promoting a holistic teaching approach that encompasses all aspects of science, the authors strive to help readers implement change so that decisions about resources and learning are no longer made "from the top down" by policymakers, but rather "from the bottom up" by teachers, parents, and students at the local level. Akhlesh Lakhtakia, one of the contributors to this volume, was recently featured on CNN in a discussion on solar energy.

With the growing attention to the exploitation of renewable energies and heat recovery from industrial processes, the traditional steam and gas cycles are showing themselves often inadequate. The inadequacy is due to the great assortment of the required sizes power and of the large kind of heat sources. Closed Power Cycles: Thermodynamic Fundamentals and Applications offers an organized discussion about the strong interaction between working fluids, the thermodynamic behavior of the cycle using them and the technological design aspects of the machines. A precise treatment of thermal engines operating in accordance with closed cycles is provided to develop ideas and discussions strictly founded on the basic thermodynamic facts that control the closed cycles operation and design. Closed Power Cycles: Thermodynamic Fundamentals and Applications also contains numerous examples which have been carried out with the help of the Aspen Plus (R)R program. Including chapters on binary cycles, the organic Rankine cycle and real closed gas cycles, Closed Power Cycles: Thermodynamic Fundamentals and Applications acts a solid introduction and reference for post-graduate students and researchers working in applied thermodynamics and energy conversion with thermodynamic engines.

This book is designed to be an inclusive for the best practice approach to building maintenance management, where the processes, procedures and operational systems meet a high standard of professional and academic competence. It offers a different perspective on building maintenance management by presenting the schematic building maintenance value chain model and it's implementation in Malaysian university buildings. The findings show an improvement to building performance, lower maintenance cost, building sustainability and increased maintenance service user satisfaction. The learning outcomes and summaries provided for each chapter and the extensive use of tables and figures add to the readability of the text. Though the book is based on data from Malaysia, it is useful for a much wider audience, and the informal writing style makes it an interesting reference source. This book is valuable for readers who are practitioners, professionals and for academic institutions that offer courses in the building field, including architecture, quantity surveying, civil engineering, building and facility management, property management, real estate. It will also be of interest to governments and others involved in the construction industry.

Aero and Vibroacoustics of Automotive Turbochargers is a topic involving aspects from the working fields of thermodynamics of turbomachinery, aerodynamics, rotordynamics, and noise propagation computation. In this broadly interdisciplinary subject, thermodynamics of turbomachinery is used to design the turbocharger and to determine its operating conditions. Aerodynamics is needed to study the compressor flow dynamics and flow instabilities of rotating stall and surge, which can produce growling and whining-type noises. Rotordynamics is necessary to study rotor unbalance and self-excited oil-whirl instabilities, which lead to whistling and constant tone-type noises in rotating floating oil-film type bearings. For the special case of turbochargers using ball bearings, some high-order harmonic and wear noises also manifest in the rotor operating range. Lastly, noise propagation computation, based on Lighthill's analogy, is required to investigate airborne noises produced by turbochargers in passenger vehicles. The content of this book is intended for advanced undergraduates, graduates in mechanical engineering, research scientists and practicing engineers who want to better understand the interactions between these working fields and the resulting impact on the interesting topic of Aero and Vibroacoustics of Automotive Turbochargers.

This book examines in detail the planning and modelling of local infrastructure like energy systems, including the complexities resulting from various uncertainties. Readers will discover the individual steps involved in infrastructure planning in cities and territories, as well as the primary requirements and supporting quality factors. Further topics covered concern the field of uncertainty and its synergies with infrastructure planning. Theories, methodological backgrounds and concrete case studies will not only help readers to understand the proposed methodologies for modelling and uncertainty analysis, but will also show them how these approaches are implemented in practice.

The aim of this book is to explore science and technology from the viewpoint of creating new knowledge, as opposed to the reinterpretation of existing knowledge in ever greater but uncertain detail. Scientists and technologists make progress by distinguishing between what they regard as meaningful and what they consider as secondary or unimportant. The meaningful is dynamic; typically, the less important is static. Science and technology have made a major contribution to the culture and to the standard of living of our society. From antiquity to the present day, the most distinguished scientists and technologists have been thinkers, experimenters and persons willing and able to challenge "the obvious". Technology develops products and processes based on the breakthroughs of science. If technologists fail to steadily upgrade their skills, tools and methods, they will only be as good as their last design, risking obsolescence. Using practical examples and case studies, this book documents the correlations existing between science and technology, and elucidates these correlations with practical applications ranging from real-life situations, from R&D to energy production. As it is a salient problem, and a most challenging one to our society, power production has been chosen as a major case study. The holistic approach to science and technology followed by this text enhances the ability to deliver practical results. This book is intended for students and researchers of science, technology and mathematical analysis, while also providing a valuable reference book for professionals. Its subject is one of the most debated problems of mankind.

This book presents the latest scientific research related to the field of Robotics. It involves different topics such as biomedicine, energy efficiency and home automation and robotics. The book is written by technical experts and researchers from academia and industry working on robotics applications. The book could be used as supplementary material for courses related to Robotics and Domotics.

This interdisciplinary thesis involves the design and analysis of coordination algorithms on networks, identification of dynamic networks and estimation on networks with random geometries with implications for networks that support the operation of dynamic systems, e.g., formations of robotic vehicles, distributed estimation via sensor networks. The results have ramifications for fault detection and isolation of large-scale networked systems and optimization models and algorithms for next generation aircraft power systems. The author finds novel applications of the methodology in energy systems, such as residential and industrial smart energy management systems.

Electronics has undergone important and rapid developments over the last 60 years, which have generated a large range of theoretical and practical notions. This book presents a comprehensive treatise of the evolution of electronics for the reader to grasp both fundamental concepts and the associated practical applications through examples and exercises. This first volume of the Fundamentals of Electronics series comprises four chapters devoted to elementary devices, i.e. diodes, bipolar junction transistors and related devices, field effect transistors and amplifiers, their electrical models and the basic functions they can achieve. Volumes to come will deal with systems in the continuous time regime, the various aspects of sampling signals and systems using analog (A) and digital (D) treatments, quantized level systems, as well as DA and AD converter principles and realizations.

The book outlines the regulatory environment for disaster prevention and management in broad social, economic and political context. The first half of the book focuses mainly on Japan, especially the '3-11' events: the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku area on 11 March 2011 and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant radiation leaks. The second half focuses on the USA (the only other Asia-Pacific country to have experienced a serious nuclear emergency), Indonesia, China, New Zealand, Australia and international law. One question explored is whether socio-legal norms play different roles in preventing and managing responses to natural disasters compared to 'man-made' disasters. Another is how 'disaster law' interacts with society across very diverse societies in the disaster-prone Asia-Pacific region. The book also addresses the increasingly important roles played by international law and regional regimes for cross-border cooperation in disaster prevention and relief, including the functions played by military forces. Erudite, pragmatic, and charged with detailed, substantive knowledge of an astonishing range of contexts and research fields, this timely collection of important essays on the law and society of disaster management stands as an exemplary international academic response to the disasters of 11 March 2011. (Annelise Riles)

This book provides a rough entry into the interdisciplinary field of Infranomics. It enables better decision making in an increasing ambiguous, complex, emergent, interdependent, and uncertain world where we attempt to anticipate modern society trends and patterns in order to react appropriately. However, as with any emerging discipline, much research is needed at the applications and conceptual level. The applications level may require development and testing of methods, tools, and techniques to enable analysis and decision-making in ambiguous, complex, emergent, interdependent, and uncertain conditions while the conceptual level may require taping into driving philosophies, theories, and methodologies that form the basis for Infranomics. Striking the right balance between applications and conceptual foundation (theory) requires rigorous research. This book provides a springboard for robust discussions on applications, theory, and transformation of current thinking to better deal with modern society’s problematic issues using Infranomics.

This book presents an overview of the risks involved in modern electricity production, delivery and trading, including technical risk in production, transportation and delivery, operational risk for the system operators, market risks for traders, and political and other long term risks in strategic management. Using decision making under uncertainty as a methodological background, the book is divided into four parts, with Part I focusing on energy markets, particularly electricity markets. Topics include a nontechnical overview of energy markets and their main properties, basic price models for energy commodity prices, and modeling approaches for electricity price processes. Part II looks at optimal decisions in managing energy systems, including hydropower dispatch models, cutting plane algorithms and approximative dynamic programming; hydro-thermal production; renewable; stochastic investments and operational optimization models for natural gas transport; decision making in operating electricity networks; and investment in extending energy production systems. Part III explores pricing, including electricity swing options and the pricing of derivatives with volume control. Part IV looks at long-term and political risks, including energy systems under aspects of climate change, and catastrophic operational risks, particularly risks from terrorist attacks.

This book covers broad aspects of the chemistry of -stacked polymers and low-molecular-weight molecules, from synthesis through theory. It is intended for graduate students and researchers in academia and industry and consists of chapters written by renowned scientists who have made significant contributions to this field in the past decade. -Stacked polymers and low-molecular-weight molecules are expected to replace main-chain conjugated polymers such as polyacetylenes and polythiophenes as organic conducting and energy-transferring substances that are important as materials for photo-electronic applications. -Stacked polymers and molecules have significant advantages over main-chain conjugated polymers, i.e., high solubility in solvents, large freedom in molecular design, and colorless nature.