This thesis presents the fundamental research and latest findings on novel flexible/wearable photovoltaic technology, and comprehensively summarizes the rapid developments in flexible photovoltaics, from traditional planar solar cells to fiber solar cells. It discusses the rational design of fiber solar cell materials, electrodes and devices, as well as critical factors including cost, efficiency, flexibility and stability . Furthermore, it addresses fundamental theoretical principles and novel fabrication technologies and their potential applications. The book provides practical information for university researchers and graduate students interested in flexible fiber photovoltaics, and inspires them to design other novel flexible/wearable electronics and textiles.

The use of fossil fuels has generated an increasing amount of interest in renewable energy resources. Energy policies and management are of primary importance to achieve the development of sustainability and need to be consistent with recent advances in energy production and distribution. Challenges lie as much in the conversion from renewable energies such as wind and solar to useful forms like electricity, heat and fuel at an acceptable cost (including environmental damage) as in the integration of these resources into an existing infrastructure. This volume includes collaborative research between different disciplines, including materials, energy networks, new energy resources, storage solutions, waste to energy systems, smart grids and many other related subjects.

This book describes current, competitive coating technologies for vehicles. The authors detail how these technologies impact energy efficiency in engines and with increased use of lightweight materials and by varying coatings applications can resolve wear problems, resulting in the increased lifecycle of dies and other vehicle components.

"Applications, 2nd Edition" focuses on moving object management, from the location management perspective to determining how constantly changing locations affect the traditional database and data mining technology. The book specifically describes the topics of moving objects modeling and location tracking, indexing and querying, clustering, location uncertainty, traffic-aware navigation and privacy issues, as well as the application to intelligent transportation systems. Through the book, the readers will be made familiar with the cutting-edge technologies in moving object management that can be effectively applied in LBS and transportation contexts. The second edition of this book significantly expands the coverage of the latest research on location privacy, traffic-aware navigation and uncertainty. The book has also been reorganized, with nearly all chapters rewritten, and several new chapters have been added to address the latest topics on moving objects management.

Xiaofeng Meng is a professor at the School of Information, Renmin University of China; Zhiming Ding is a professor at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISCAS); Jiajie Xu is an assistant professor at the ISCAS.

Chip-integrated power management solutions are a must for ultra-low power systems. This enables not only the optimization of innovative sensor applications. It is also essential for integration and miniaturization of energy harvesting supply strategies of portable and autonomous monitoring systems. The book particularly addresses interfaces for energy harvesting, which are the key element to connect micro transducers to energy storage elements. Main features of the book are: - A comprehensive technology and application review, basics on transducer mechanics, fundamental circuit and control design, prototyping and testing, up to sensor system supply and applications. - Novel interfacing concepts - including active rectifiers, MPPT methods for efficient tracking of DC as well as AC sources, and a fully-integrated charge pump for efficient maximum AC power tracking at sub-100W ultra-low power levels. The chips achieve one of widest presented operational voltage range in standard CMOS technology: 0.44V to over 4.1V. - Two special chapters on analog circuit design - it studies benefits and obstacles on implemented chip prototypes with three goals: ultra- low power, wide supply voltage range, and integration with standard technologies. Alternative design approaches are pursued using bulk-input transistor stages in forward-bias operation for amplifiers, modulators, and references. - Comprehensive Appendix - with additional fundamental analysis, design and scaling guidelines, circuit implementation tables and dimensions, schematics, source code listings, bill of material, etc. The discussed prototypes and given design guidelines are tested with real vibration transducer devices. The intended readership is graduate students in advanced courses, academics and lecturers, R&D engineers.

Energy is one of the worlds most challenging problems, and power systems are an important aspect of energy-related issues. The Handbook of Power Systems contains state-of-the-art contributions on power systems modeling. In particular, it covers topics like operation planning, expansion planning, transmission and distribution modeling, computing technologies in energy systems, energy auctions, risk management, market regulation, stochastic programming in energy, and forecasting in energy. The book is separated into nine sections, which cover the most important areas of energy systems. The contributions are authored by recognized specialists in their fields and consist in either state-of-the-art reviews or examinations of state-of-the-art developments. The articles are not purely theoretical, but instead also discuss specific applications in power systems.

The importance of power system reliability is demonstrated when our electricity supply is disrupted, whether it decreases the comfort of our free time at home or causes the shutdown of our companies and results in huge economic deficits. The objective of Assessment of Power System Reliability is to contribute to the improvement of power system reliability. It consists of six parts divided into twenty chapters. The first part introduces the important background issues that affect power system reliability. The second part presents the reliability methods that are used for analyses of technical systems and processes. The third part discusses power flow analysis methods, because the dynamic aspect of a power system is an important part of related reliability assessments. The fourth part explores various aspects of the reliability assessment of power systems and their parts. The fifth part covers optimization methods. The sixth part looks at the application of reliability and optimization methods. Assessment of Power System Reliability has been written in straightforward language that continues into the mathematical representation of the methods. Power engineers and developers will appreciate the emphasis on practical usage, while researchers and advanced students will benefit from the simple examples that can facilitate their understanding of the theory behind power system reliability and that outline the procedure for application of the presented methods.

This book analyzes the influence of electric vehicles on microclimate and the indirect influence on power load from a unique perspective. It discusses different aspects of Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, including large and small-scale charging infrastructures, and describes the effect on electricity price, voltage, frequency and other key V2G technologies. It introduces various aspects of the influence of electric vehicles on the power grids and the control strategies for achieving economic, safe and steady grid operation using V2G technologies. This book is suitable for senior undergraduates and postgraduates majoring in electrical, transportation, or environmental engineering, as well as other related professionals.

The road vehicle of the future will embrace innovations from three major automotive technology fields: driver assistance systems, vehicle networking and alternative propulsion. Smart systems such as adaptive ICT components and MEMS devices, novel network architectures, integrated sensor systems, intelligent interfaces and functional materials form the basis of these features and permit their successful and synergetic integration. They increasingly appear to be the key enabling technologies for safe and green road mobility. For more than fifteen years the International Forum on Advanced Microsystems for Automotive Applications (AMAA) has been successful in detecting novel trends and in discussing the technological implications from early on. The topic of the AMAA 2013 will be Smart Systems for Safe and Green Vehicles . This book contains peer-reviewed papers written by leading engineers and researchers which all address the ongoing research and novel developments in the field.

www.amaa.de

This contributed volume contains the selected and thoroughly reviewed research papers presented at the conference on logistics management LM2015 in Braunschweig, Germany. The conference of the special interest group in logistics of the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) was held in conjunction with the special interest group on production of the VHB. Thus, the papers reflect the current state-of-the-art in logistics and supply chain management while focusing especially on aspects of production logistics, i.e., facility layout, inventory management, line configuration, or flexible production.

1. 1 Motivation and Scope of Research Container terminals in seaports constitute interfaces between sea and land tra- port of goods in global transport chains. These logistics facilities face an increasing demandof service capacity, as is re ected by a tremendousgrowthin the worldwide container transshipments per year. For example, the top 20 terminals in the world showed an average relative increase of 14% with respect to the number of handled container units from 2006 to 2007, see Port of Hamburg Marketing (2008). In spite of this development, competition is high among container terminals within the same region. A terminal's customers, rst and foremost the vessel op- ators, expect a high level of service quality where reliability is one of the most importantdimensions, seeWiegmansetal. (2001). Regardingtheserviceofavessel, reliability means to realize all transshipment operations within its projected service time interval. The reliability of terminal operations impacts the reliability of v- sels in meeting their liner schedules. According to Notteboom (2006) unexpected waiting times of vessels before berthing and unexpected low transshipment prod- tivity at terminals are responsible for about 86% of liner schedule disturbances, see Fig. 1. 1. Currently, many terminal operators counteract this situation by extending their transshipment capacities. They build new terminals or enlarge existing ter- nals and purchase new or upgrade existing equipment. Ilmer (2005) provides an overview of current projects for building terminal capacity in northern Europe.

For many, smart grids are the biggest technological revolution since the Internet. They have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, increase the reliability of electricity supply, and increase the efficiency of our energy infrastructure.

"Smart Grid Applications, Communications, and Security "explains how diverse technologies play hand-in-hand in building and maintaining smart grids around the globe. The book delves into the communication aspects of smart grids, provides incredible insight into power electronics, sensing, monitoring, and control technologies, and points out the potential for new technologies and markets.

Extensively cross-referenced, the book contains comprehensive coverage in four major parts: "Part I: "Applications provides a detailed introduction to smart grid applications--spanning the transmission, distribution, and consumer side of the electricity grid"Part II: "Communications discusses wireless, wireline, and optical communication solutions--from the physical layers up to sensing, automation, and control protocols running on the application layers"Part III: "Security deals with cyber security--sharpening the awareness of security threats, reviewing the ongoing standardization, and outlining the future of authentication and encryption key management"Part IV: "Case Studies and Field Trials presents self-contained chapters of studies where the smart grid of tomorrow has already been put into practice With contributions from major industry stakeholders such as Siemens, Cisco, ABB, and Motorola, this is the ideal book for both engineering professionals and students.

This book documents the advantages and limitations of various electricity generation methods. It illustrates how both electricity and motor fuel can be cost-effectively derived from coal, natural gas or other indigenous fuels, thereby eliminating our dependence on imported oil and the power of OPEC. It favours electricity generation systems powered exclusively by natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewables and motor vehicles powered by hydrogen (electricity from coal gasification with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and hydrogen as the fuel powering fuel-cell electric vehicles produced from natural gas or by gasifying coal With CCS.) The book also demonstrates that the US can meet the Climate Change goal of reducing all greenhouse gases by 80% below 1990 levels in both the transportation and electric utility sectors using hydrogen and coal.

This book is a single-source guide to nonlinearity and nonlinear techniques in energy harvesting, with a focus on vibration energy harvesters for micro and nanoscale applications. The authors demonstrate that whereas nonlinearity was avoided as an undesirable phenomenon in early energy harvesters, now it can be used as an essential part of these systems. Readers will benefit from an overview of nonlinear techniques and applications, as well as deeper insight into methods of analysis and modeling of energy harvesters, employing different nonlinearities. The role of nonlinearity due to different aspects of an energy harvester is discussed, including nonlinearity due to mechanical-to-electrical conversion, nonlinearity due to conditioning electronic circuits, nonlinearity due to novel materials (e.g., graphene), etc. Coverage includes tutorial introductions to MEMS and NEMS technology, as well as a wide range of applications, such as nonlinear oscillators and transducers for energy harvesters and electronic conditioning circuits for effective energy processing.

The Next Economics focuses on how the field of economics must change and incorporate environment, energy, health and new technologies that are called externalities for stopping and reversing climate change. The field of economics needs to become a science. Economics in this book for the Green Industrial Revolution which goes beyond the third industrial revolution since it covers cases, examples and specific economic analyses that both scientific and global. The book concerns climate change and how the Economics for Externalities, needs to range from energy and national security to infrastructure and communities. Solutions and cases of the "Next Economics" are based in western philosophical economic paradigms and how that is changing due to the significance of current global economic and societal concerns. Finally practical applications for economics are explored using global environmental and energy issues. Areas that need a fresh look at and be integrated with economics, include the environment, social and political issues, energy, health climate change and their infrastructures, as they are major components of the macroeconomics for the future. Based on past economic models, these subjects have been lost or ill fitted into modern economic theory. The challenge is to explore and to look deeply into economics in order to provide it a new direction with the possibility for understanding, changing and saving the planet from climate change. This book presents to economists and policy-makers alike areas of environmental economics, energy policy, health and social issues which are needed to stop and reverse climate change.

This book presents numerical and experimental research in the field of wind energy exploitation in urban environments. It comprises a selection of the best papers from the international colloquium "Research and Innovation on Wind Energy Exploitation in Urban Environment" (TUrbWind), held in Riva del Garda, Italy in June 2017. The book includes contributions from different research fields in urban wind resources, wind energy conversion systems, and urban integration, mainly focusing on the following topics: * concepts for urban and open landscape micro wind turbines, * integration of micro wind turbines in existing structures, * built-environment and high-turbulence sites' impacts on urban wind turbines, * measuring and modeling wind resource in built environments, * rotor performance and wake features of micro wind turbines. It is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners interested in the integration of wind energy systems and turbines in urban areas.

This book provides important insights into the combustion behavior of novel energy crops and agricultural fuels. It describes a new experimental approach to combustion evaluation, involving fundamental, bench-scale and commercial-scale studies. The studies presented were conducted on two representative biomass energy crops: a woody biomass poplar (Populus sp. or poplar) and an herbaceous biomass brassica (Brassica carinata or brassica). Moreover, agricultural residues of Manihot esculenta or cassava were also analyzed. The main accomplishments of this work are threefold. Firstly, it offers an extensive characterization of the above-mentioned fuels, their ash chemistry and their emissions of both solid particles and gaseous compounds that form at typical grate combustion conditions. Secondly, it presents an in-depth analysis of ash fractionation processes for major ash species. Thirdly, it describes the role of some critical and volatile key elements (K, Cl, S and P) in grate-fired combustion systems and elucidates the main differences in the ash chemistry during combustion of Si-rich and P-rich fuels. All in all, this work provides novel insights on the basic and fundamental mechanisms of biomass grate combustion with a special focus on ash transformation and highlights important issues and recommendations that need to be considered for an appropriate conversion of ash-rich fuels and for the development of future technology in the context of both small- and medium-scale biomass-based heat and power production.

During the last decade, many new concepts have been proposed for improving the performance of power rectifiers and transistors. The results of this research are dispersed in the technical literature among journal articles and abstracts of conferences. Consequently, the information is not readily available to researchers and practicing engineers in the power device community. There is no cohesive treatment of the ideas to provide an assessment of the relative merits of the ideas.

Advanced Power Rectifier Concepts provides an in-depth treatment of the physics of operation of advanced power rectifiers. Analytical models for explaining the operation of all the advanced power rectifier devices will be developed. The results off numerical simulations will be provided to provide additional insight into the device physics and validate the analytical models. The results of two-dimensional simulations will be provided to corroborate the analytical models and provide greater insight into the device operation.

This book describes the wave characteristics of contact lines taking wind into consideration and discusses new methods for detecting catenary geometry, pantograph slide fault, and catenary support system faults. It also introduces wire-irregularity detection methods for catenary estimation, and discusses modern spectrum estimation tools for catenary. It is organized in three parts: the first discusses statistical characteristics of pantograph-catenary data, such as stationarity, periodicity, correlation, high-order statistical properties and wave characteristics of contact lines, which are the basis of pantograph-catenary relationship analysis. The second part includes geometry parameter detection and support-system fault detection in catenary, as well as slide-fault detection in pantographs, and presents some new detection algorithms and plans. The final part addresses catenary estimation, including detection of contact-line wire irregularities and estimation of catenary based on spectrum, and presents detection methods for contact-line irregularity and modern spectrum estimation tools for catenary.

This book presents the most important aspects of analysis of dynamical processes taking place on the human body surface. It provides an overview of the major devices that act as a prevention measure to boost a person's motivation for physical activity. A short overview of the most popular MEMS sensors for biomedical applications is given. The development and validation of a multi-level computational model that combines mathematical models of an accelerometer and reduced human body surface tissue is presented. Subsequently, results of finite element analysis are used together with experimental data to evaluate rheological properties of not only human skin but skeletal joints as well. Methodology of development of MOEMS displacement-pressure sensor and adaptation for real-time biological information monitoring, namely "ex vivo" and "in vitro" blood pulse type analysis, is described. Fundamental and conciliatory investigations, achieved knowledge and scientific experience about biologically adaptive multifunctional nanocomposite materials, their properties and synthesis compatibility, periodical microstructures, which may be used in various optical components for modern, productive sensors' formation technologies and their application in medicine, pharmacy industries and environmental monitoring, are presented and analyzed. This book also is aimed at research and development of vibrational energy harvester, which would convert ambient kinetic energy into electrical energy by means of the impact-type piezoelectric transducer. The book proposes possible prototypes of devices for non-invasive real-time artery pulse measurements and micro energy harvesting.

This edited volume presents the proceedings of the AMAA 2015 conference, Berlin, Germany. The topical focus of the 2015 conference lies on smart systems for green and automated driving. The automobile of the future has to respond to two major trends, the electrification of the drivetrain, and the automation of the transportation system. These trends will not only lead to greener and safer driving but re-define the concept of the car completely, particularly if they interact with each other in a synergetic way as for autonomous parking and charging, self-driving shuttles or mobile robots. Key functionalities like environment perception are enabled by electronic components and systems, sensors and actuators, communication nodes, cognitive systems and smart systems integration. The book will be a valuable read for research experts and professionals in the automotive industry but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.

Vehicular communication is a key technology in intelligent transportation systems. For many years now, the academic and industrial research communities have been investigating these communications in order to improve efficiency and safety of future transportation. Vehicular networking offers a wide variety of applications, including safety applications as well as infotainment applications. This book highlights the recent developments in vehicular networking technologies and their interaction with future smart cities in order to promote further research activities and challenges. SAADI BOUDJIT, University of Paris 13, France HAKIMA CHAOUCHI, Telecom SudParis, France YACINE GHAMRI, University La Rochelle, France HALABI HASBULLAH, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia ANIS LAOUITI, Telecom SudParis, France SAOUCENE MAHFOUDH, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia PAUL MUHLETHALER, INRIA, France AMIR QAYYUM, Mohamad Ali Jinnah University, Pakistan NAUFAL SAAD, Universiti Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia AHMED SOUA, NIST, USA HAJIME TAZAKI, University of Tokyo, Japan APINUN TUNPAN, Aintec, Thailand WEI WEI, Xi'an University, China RACHID ZAGROUBA, ENSI, Tunisia.

This book is aimed at all those who are interested to understand the current research going on in nanomaterial science from the perspectives of biomedical, sensorial and energy applications including all aspects of physical chemist, chemical engineers and material scientist. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are at the forefront of modern research. The fast growing economy in this area requires experts with outstanding knowledge of nanoscience in combination with the skills to apply this knowledge in new products. A multidisciplinary scientific education is crucial to provide industry and research institutes with top quality experts who have a generic background in the different sub disciplines such as electronics, physics, chemistry, material science, biotechnology. The book covers recent advancement in nanoscience and nanotechnology particularly highlights the utilization of different types of nanomaterials in biomedical field, sensor and in the energy application. On the other hand, it leads the reader to the most significant recent developments in research. It provides a broad and in-depth coverage of the nanoscale materials and its depth significant applications.

This book provides a thorough treatment of privacy and security issues for researchers in the fields of smart grids, engineering, and computer science. It presents comprehensive insight to understanding the big picture of privacy and security challenges in both physical and information aspects of smart grids. The authors utilize an advanced interdisciplinary approach to address the existing security and privacy issues and propose legitimate countermeasures for each of them in the standpoint of both computing and electrical engineering. The proposed methods are theoretically proofed by mathematical tools and illustrated by real-world examples.