Objective Evaluation Techniques Research Articles

Speckle tracking of left ventricle in pediatric patients with hemodynamically significant patent ductus arteriosus (PDA): case–control study

BackgroundLeft ventricle (LV) volume overload is observed with hemodynamically significant PDA as it causes left to right shunting, leading to increased pulmonary blood flow. This overload causes LV remodeling as LV increases stroke volume in trial for compensation, but in larger shunts, patients may develop symptoms of congestive heart failure. Two-dimensional (2D) speckle-tracking echocardiography has emerged as a technique for objective and quantitative evaluation of global and regional myocardial function, independent of the angle of myocardial insonation.Aim of the workThis study aimed to evaluate left ventricular function by 2-dimensional speckle tracking in children with hemodynamically significant PDA.MethodsThis prospective controlled study was performed on 54 children divided into two groups (34 as cases and 20 as controls) to compare echocardiographic measurements. Conventional Echocardiography, tissue Doppler, and Speckle tracking were done for all patients, and measurements were compared.ResultsThere was a statistically significant difference (p value < 0.001) in global longitudinal strain (GLS) in the PDA group indicating a decrease in LV function in PDA patients. This difference was observed in several conventional echocardiographic parameters but not in tissue Doppler in our study.ConclusionLeft ventricle global strain is an important predictor of the myocardial performance index of the Left ventricle in patients with hemodynamically significant PDA and outweighs other conventional echocardiographic parameters and tissue Doppler indices.

An Efficient Immersive Self-Training System for Hip-Hop Dance Performance with Automatic Evaluation Features

As a significant form of physical expression, dance demands ongoing training for skill enhancement, particularly in expressiveness. However, such training often faces restrictions related to location and time. Moreover, the evaluation of dance performance tends to be subjective, which necessitates the development of effective training methods and objective evaluation techniques. In this research, we introduce a self-training system for dance that employs VR technology to create an immersive training environment that facilitates a comprehensive understanding of three-dimensional dance movements. Furthermore, the system incorporates markerless motion capture technology to accurately record dancers’ movements in real time and translate them into the VR avatar. Additionally, the use of deep learning enables multi-perspective dance performance assessment, providing feedback to users to aid their repetitive practice. To enable deep learning-based dance evaluations, we established a dataset that incorporates data from beginner-level dances along with expert evaluations of those dances. This dataset was specifically curated for practitioners in a dance studio setting by using a total of four cameras to record dances. Expert annotations were obtained from various perspectives to provide a comprehensive evaluation. This study also proposes three unique automatic evaluation models. A comparative analysis of the models, particularly contrastive learning (and autoencoder)-based expression learning and a reference-guided model (where a model dancer’s performance serves as a reference), revealed that the reference-guided model achieved superior accuracy. The proposed method was able to predict dance performance ratings with an accuracy of approximately ±1 point on a 10-point scale, compared to ratings by professional coaches. Our findings open up novel possibilities for future dance training and evaluation systems.

“Who Said That?” Applying the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique to Social Telepresence

As with all remotely controlled robots, successful teleoperation of social and telepresence robots relies greatly on operator situation awareness; however, existing situation awareness measurements, most being originally created for military purposes, are not adapted to the context of social interaction. We propose an objective technique for telepresence evaluation based on the widely accepted Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique, adjusted to suit social contexts. This was trialled in a between-subjects participant study ( n = 56) comparing the effect of mono and spatial (binaural) audio feedback on operator situation awareness during robot teleoperation in a simulated social telepresence scenario. Subjective data were also recorded, including questions adapted from Witmer and Singer’s Presence Questionnaire, as well as qualitative feedback from participants. No significant differences in situation awareness measurements were detected; however, correlations observed between measures call for further research. This study and its findings are a potential starting point for the development of social situation awareness assessment techniques, which can inform future social and telepresence robot design decisions.

Correlation between cortical auditory evoked potential and auditory speech performance in children with cochlear implants.

This study aimed to explore the correlation between the characteristics of cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) of children with cochlear implants (CIs) and auditory and speech rehabilitation performance by an objective evaluation technique and subjective auditory and speech skills measurements. All participants were recruited from Beijing Children's Hospital, Beijing, China. 19 children with CIs had their responses to the CAEP and MMN recorded. The LittlEARs® Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ), Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP), Speech Intelligibility Rating Scale (SIR), Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS), and Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS) measures were taken to assess the children's speech and hearing abilities. P1 and MMN of CAEP were negatively related to the duration of CI usage. The duration of CI usage and scores of auditory-verbal assessment questionnaires all showed significant relationships. Additionally, scores of these questionnaires were significantly inversely associated with the latency of P1 and MMN. P1 and MMN could be used as objective methods to evaluate the effectiveness of hearing and speech rehabilitation in children with CIs. In particular to those who cannot give effectively feedback of auditory and verbal effects, these methods might have a certain guiding significance.

WAAI: A Weighted Author Affiliation Index for Journal Evaluation

Journal evaluation methodologies are often used to produce journal-ranking lists for various purposes. In this study, the authors present a modularity-based journal evaluation methodology based on the proportional contributions that journals receive from authors affiliated with globally ranked institutions. This empirically developed methodology draws on a stratification of institutions in the global rankings to allocate weights to article batches in a given journal. The authors apply the proposed methodology to evaluating 12,150 scholarly journals in different subject fields. The results show an elitist set of journals with a heavy tendency to publish mostly from authors affiliated with the top-ranked institutions. These journals have the highest weighted author affiliation index (WAAI) scores and are highly distinguished titles in different subject fields. However, the authors find a large population of journals that receive contributions mostly from institutions at lower ranks. They argue that the WAAI methodology provides a generic and objective evaluation technique for ranking journals across all disciplines.

Using Arterial Pulse and Laser Doppler Analyses to Discriminate between the Cardiovascular Effects of Different Running Levels.

Running can induce advantageous cardiovascular effects such as improved arterial stiffness and blood-supply perfusion. However, the differences between the vascular and blood-flow perfusion conditions under different levels of endurance-running performance remains unclear. The present study aimed to assess the vascular and blood-flow perfusion conditions among 3 groups (44 male volunteers) according to the time taken to run 3 km: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The radial blood pressure waveform (BPW), finger photoplethygraphy (PPG), and skin-surface laser-Doppler flowmetry (LDF) signals of the subjects were measured. Frequency-domain analysis was applied to BPW and PPG signals; time- and frequency-domain analyses were applied to LDF signals. Pulse waveform and LDF indices differed significantly among the three groups. These could be used to evaluate the advantageous cardiovascular effects provided by long-term endurance-running training, such as vessel relaxation (pulse waveform indices), improvement in blood supply perfusion (LDF indices), and changes in cardiovascular regulation activities (pulse and LDF variability indices). Using the relative changes in pulse-effect indices, we achieved almost perfect discrimination between Level 3 and Level 2 (AUC = 0.878). Furthermore, the present pulse waveform analysis could also be used to discriminate between the Level-1 and Level-2 groups. The present findings contribute to the development of a noninvasive, easy-to-use, and objective evaluation technique for the cardiovascular benefits of prolonged endurance-running training.

Ecological Environment Evaluation Based on Remote Sensing Ecological Index: A Case Study in East China over the Past 20 Years

East China is one of the most active regions in terms of economic and social development, and with the accelerated urbanization process, environmental problems are becoming increasingly prominent. The objective, quantitative, and timely evaluation of spatial and temporal changes in ecological quality is of great significance for environmental protection and decision making. The remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) is an objective, fast, and easy ecological quality monitoring and evaluation technique which has been widely used in the field of ecological research, but it often involves problems of cloud occlusion and stitching difficulties when used to conduct large-scale and long-term monitoring. In this paper, based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, an RSEI was constructed using MODIS data products to evaluate the spatial and temporal changes in ecological quality in East China over the past 20 years. The study shows the following: (1) The mean RSEI values in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 were 0.67, 0.55, 0.59, 0.58, and 0.63, respectively, with the mean values first decreasing and then showing a stable increasing trend. In Shanghai and Jiangsu, the mean RSEI values show a fluctuating characteristic of “falling and then rising”, and large respective decreases of 32.4% and 25.8% throughout the monitoring period. The RSEI values in Fujian Province showed a relatively stable upward trend during the study period (19% increase). (2) The RSEI spatially correlated clustering maps of the local indicators showed that the regions with a high degree of clustering are mainly located in Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province, Ningde City, Fujian Province, and northern Anhui Province (Bozhou and Huabei). With the promotion of ecological civilization and the enhancement of environmental protection awareness, the vegetation cover has significantly increased, which has led to the rise in RSEI values. The low values are mainly distributed in densely populated areas with more human activity, such as the central-eastern part of Jiangsu Province, central Anhui Province, Shanghai, and northern Zhejiang Province. With the development of cities, impervious surfaces occupy more and more ecological land, which eventually affects the regional RSEI values. (3) This research provides a promising method for the evaluation of spatial and temporal changes in ecological environment quality based on an RSEI and GEE. The image processing, based on GEE cloud computing, can help overcome the problems of missing remote sensing data, chromatic aberrations, and spatial and temporal inconsistency, which could greatly improve the efficiency of image processing and extend the application of the remote sensing ecological index to large-scale, long-term ecological monitoring. The research results can provide a reference for improving the applicability and accuracy of remote sensing ecological indices and provide a theoretical basis for ecological conservation and land management in the context of rapid urbanization.

Establishment of a Multi-parameter Evaluation Model for Risk of Aspiration in Dysphagia: A Pilot Study.

It's difficult for clinical bedside evaluations to accurately determine the occurrence of aspiration in patients. Although VFSS and FEES are the gold standards for clinical diagnosis of dysphagia, which are mainly used to evaluate people at high risk of dysphagia found by bedside screening, the operation is complicated and time-consuming. The aim of this pilot study was to present an objective measure based on a multi-parameter approach to screen for aspiration risk in patients with dysphagia. Objective evaluation techniques based on speech parameters were used to assess the oral motor function, vocal cord function, and voice changes before and after swallowing in 32 patients with dysphagia (16 low-risk aspiration group, 16 high-risk aspiration group). Student's t test combined with stepwise logistic regression were used to determine the optimal index. The best model consists of three parameters, and the equation is: logit(P) = -3.824-(0.504 × maximum phonation time) + (0.008 × second formant frequency of /u/)-0.085 × (fundamental frequency difference before and after swallowing). An additional eight patients with dysphagia were randomly selected as the validation group of the model. When applied to validation, this model can accurately identify the risk of aspiration in 87.5% of patients, and the sensitivity is as high as 100%. Therefore, it has certain clinical practical value that may help clinicians to assess the risk of aspiration in patients with dysphagia, especially for silent aspiration.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy as a potential objective evaluation technique in neurocognitive disorders after traumatic brain injury.

Most patients with neurocognitive disorders after traumatic brain injury (TBI) show executive dysfunction, in which the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) plays an important role. However, less objective evaluation technique could be used to assess the executive dysfunction in these patients. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is a non-invasive technique, has been widely used in the study of psychiatric disorders, cognitive dysfunction, etc. The present study aimed to explore whether fNIRS could be a technique to assess the damage degree of executive function in patients with neurocognitive disorders after TBI by using the Stroop and N-back tasks in PFC areas. We enrolled 37 patients with neurocognitive disorders after TBI and 60 healthy controls. A 22-channel fNIRS device was used to record HbO during Stroop, 1-back and 2-back tasks. The results showed that patients made significantly more errors and had longer response times than healthy controls. There were statistically significant differences in HbO level variation in bilateral frontopolar, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus during Stroop color word consistency tasks and in left frontopolar during Stroop color word inconsistency tasks. During 2-back tasks, there were also statistically significant differences in HbO level variation in bilateral frontopolar, bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex. According to brain activation maps, the patients exhibited lower but more widespread activation during the 2-back and Stroop color word consistency tasks. The fNIRS could identify executive dysfunction in patients with neurocognitive disorders after TBI by detecting HbO levels, which suggested that fNIRS could be a potential objective evaluation technique in neurocognitive disorders after TBI.

Evaluating conversational recommender systems

Conversational recommender systems aim to interactively support online users in their information search and decision-making processes in an intuitive way. With the latest advances in voice-controlled devices, natural language processing, and AI in general, such systems received increased attention in recent years. Technically, conversational recommenders are usually complex multi-component applications and often consist of multiple machine learning models and a natural language user interface. Evaluating such a complex system in a holistic way can therefore be challenging, as it requires (i) the assessment of the quality of the different learning components, and (ii) the quality perception of the system as a whole by users. Thus, a mixed methods approach is often required, which may combine objective (computational) and subjective (perception-oriented) evaluation techniques. In this paper, we review common evaluation approaches for conversational recommender systems, identify possible limitations, and outline future directions towards more holistic evaluation practices.

Quality Assessment of Ecological Environment Based on Google Earth Engine: A Case Study of the Zhoushan Islands

With the development of society, the impact of human activities on the ecological environment is becoming increasingly intense, so the dynamic monitoring of the status of the ecological environment is of great significance to the management and protection of urban ecology. As an objective and rapid ecological quality monitoring and evaluation technique, the remote sensing based ecological index (RSEI) has been widely used in the field of ecological research. Free available Landsat series data has the character of a long time series and high spatial resolution provides the possibility to conduct large-scale and long-term monitoring of ecological environment quality. Compared with traditional methods, the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform can save a lot of time and energy in the data acquisition and preprocessing steps. To monitor the quality of the ecological environment in Zhoushan from 2000 to 2020, the GEE platform was used for cloud computing to obtain the RSEI, which can reflect the quality of the ecological environment. The results show that (1) from 2000 to 2020, the average RSEI value in Zhoushan Islands decreased from 0.748 to 0.681, indicating that the overall ecological environment exhibited a degradation trend. (2) From 2000 to 2020, the change in the area of each ecological environment level indicates that the quality of the ecological environment in Zhoushan Islands exhibited a degradation trend. The proportion of the area with an excellent eco-environment grade decreased by 13.54%, and the proportion of the area with poor and fair eco-environment grades increased by 3.43%.

Text To Speech Synthesis for Afaan Oromoo Language Using Deep Learning Approach

Text to speech synthesis (TTS) which generate input texts is generate to the speech from texts. TTS is very important in aiding impaired people, in teaching and learning process. But, to implemented TTS have a lot of challenging such as text processing, time to phoneme mapping and acoustic modeling for Afaan Oromoo language. So, Afaan Oromoo language mostly required to text to speech synthesis for development of this language. The application of Natural Language Processing is provide that input texts pair speech to generate the desired result outputs of speech in waveforms from prepared text corpus. The normalized text was used for linguistic features are extracted by using Festival toolkit for Afaan Oromoo TTS. The labeled texts are done using Festival toolkit, and generated the utterances of texts from scheme file parameters. The Festival toolkit is used for texts normalized in linguistic extraction from label phoneme alignment to match with speech corpus in trains and tests. The forced alignment is done by HTK toolkit for prepared environment, checked data extracting features within timestamps of state level alignment for acoustic feature extracted. So, this study focus on TTS approach deep learning model based on BLSTM-RNN for Afaan Oromoo language. The RNN model used from a given input feature sequence to extracted duration model and acoustic model. The implementation is done in BLSTM-based on RNN using pytorch library on jupyter notebook, create duration model and generated speech samples from trained acoustic model. We have prepared 1000 texts corpus their matching text transcription from Afaan Oromoo speech corpus by a female speaker dependent for training 700 sentences and tests 300 sentences from dataset domains. In this study, two evaluation techniques used. Frist, the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) evaluation technique is used for intelligibility and naturalness in TTS. The second is Mel Cepstral Distortion (MCD) which is highly used for objective evaluation in model approach for TTS. So, the performance of this model was measured and quality of synthesized speech is assessed in terms of intelligibility and naturalness which results are 3.77 and 3.76 respectively. The total average processed using objective evaluation technique the speech corpus on 16 kHz standards is generated by MCD BLSTM-based on RNN is 3.89 and merlin wave generated is 3.71 correspondingly. Keywords: Text To Speech Synthesis, Mel Cepstral Distortion (MCD), Mean Opinion Square (MOS), Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network (BLSTM-RNN) DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/101-02 Publication date: April 30 th 2022

A Review on Meat Quality Evaluation Methods Based on Non-Destructive Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence Technologies

Increasing meat demand in terms of both quality and quantity in conjunction with feeding a growing population has resulted in regulatory agencies imposing stringent guidelines on meat quality and safety. Objective and accurate rapid non-destructive detection methods and evaluation techniques based on artificial intelligence have become the research hotspot in recent years and have been widely applied in the meat industry. Therefore, this review surveyed the key technologies of non-destructive detection for meat quality, mainly including ultrasonic technology, machine (computer) vision technology, near-infrared spectroscopy technology, hyperspectral technology, Raman spectra technology, and electronic nose/tongue. The technical characteristics and evaluation methods were compared and analyzed; the practical applications of non-destructive detection technologies in meat quality assessment were explored; and the current challenges and future research directions were discussed. The literature presented in this review clearly demonstrate that previous research on non-destructive technologies are of great significance to ensure consumers’ urgent demand for high-quality meat by promoting automatic, real-time inspection and quality control in meat production. In the near future, with ever-growing application requirements and research developments, it is a trend to integrate such systems to provide effective solutions for various grain quality evaluation applications.

Technique and Methodology for Objective Evaluation of Borrowings in Academic Texts

Purpose. To provide a detailed justification of the methodological principles, guided by the specialists of the “Antiplagiat.RSL” project when conducting an independent assessment of the originality of scientific texts.Materials and methods. The implementation of these principles is demonstrated with the examples from the practice of tests. The proposed material based on more than ten years of experience of plagiarism – test practice, will give authors and administrators of scientific institutions a clearer idea of the procedure and requirements for academic texts.Results. The automated verification of academic texts for plagiarism has become commonplace, which affects all levels - from writing graduate qualification papers to defending doctoral dissertations, publishing monographs and textbooks. There is a wide range of software specially designed for comparing texts and identifying both distinct overlapping text fragments and paraphrased ones. At the same time, everyone who has come across the verification process understands that it is impossible to rely solely on the quantitative indicators presented in the system report. Evaluation of plagiarism-test results is an area where one has to deal with different, sometimes not entirely correct, understanding of the originality of scientific texts.The Russian State Library (RSL) is a national repository and, what is even more important - it remains independent from the academic institutional milieu. The article describes essential principles of the plagiarism tests, carried out at the RSL, which are based on the organizational legitimacy, identification of individual motivation and compliance with the actual normative regulation. Methodology of the tests founds on the five key principles: objectivity, confidentiality, consistency, specificity and complexity.In addition, certain issues of an objective evaluation of plagiarism are considered in order to draw attention to the fact that independent (delegated) verification of scientific texts is one of the components of the process of supporting academic integrity in modern conditions of dissemination and reproduction of information.Conclusion. A detailed check of the texts for plagiarism allows you to make corrections, modify the texts, and eliminate shortcomings caused by the author’s carelessness or negligence. At the same time, deliberate plagiarism even if it may seem insignificant, is the most serious misconduct from the point of view of scientific ethics, and institutional control in this area is necessary.

Impact of Ventricular Morphology on Myocardial Deformation in Patients with Single Ventricle

Introduction: Functional single ventricle represent a heterogeneous group of anomalies sharing a common feature which is a functional single cardiac chamber. (1) In different series of congenital heart disease patients, cases of UVH represent about 1–2% of total congenital heart diseases. (2) Two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography has recently emerged as a novel technique for objective and quantitative evaluation of global and regional myocardial function. Objectives: To determine impact of ventricular morphology on myocardial deformation in patients with single ventricle. Patients and Methods: The study included 47 patients with functional single ventricle whether they underwent cavopulmonary anastomosis or not. All patients were referred for elective cardiac catheterization or follow up echocardiography in Ain Shams university hospitals, Cardiology department, from November 2017 to July 2018. All patients underwent full echocardiographic assessment including assessment of the dominant ventricular function by STE. Results: The study included 47 patients, 30 males (63.8%) and 17 females (36.2%). Their age ranged between 6-12 years, with mean age of 8.22 ± 1.94. The morphology of the dominant ventricle determined ventricular function by both 2D parameters and STE. Patients with a dominant LV had higher strain values. Patients who underwent a cavopulmonary shunt also had better ventricular functions. All patients included in the study showed impaired dominant ventricular function by STE even those who had normal EF by standard 2D TTE suggesting that subtle ventricular dysfunction in patients with single ventricle can be unmasked by STE.

Expectation and difficulty of the objective evaluation technique of the breast density

Expectation and difficulty of the objective evaluation technique of the breast density

Long-Term Results for a One-Stage Surgery Technique for Patients With Craniofacial Plexiform Neurofibroma.

Neurofibromatosis (NF) is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder, and NF type 1 (NF1) is one of the most common forms. Plexiform neurofibroma (PNF) is one of the characteristic expressions of NF1. The proper treatment for patients with craniofacial PNF is surgery. The evaluation methods for the surgical outcome of these patients are still controversial. As a consequence, a one-stage surgical technique and an appropriate evaluation method for patients with craniofacial PNF were discussed in this article. This research is a retrospective study. Nine patients with craniofacial PNF were included in this study. They had undergone a one-stage surgical technique of tumor debulking and nasolabial fold reconstruction. Three methods had been applied to evaluate the surgical outcome. Significant improvement was observed in 8 patients. Eight patients were assessed by the relatively objective evaluation method. Obvious symmetry improvement was calculated using Mimics software in 7 patients. The surgical technique could achieve good surgical outcomes in both functional and cosmetic terms. Additionally, the relatively objective evaluation technique based on Mimics software could be a more convincing method for evaluating the surgical outcomes of craniofacial patients with PNF.

Low-intensity extracorporeal shock wave therapy for patients with severe erectile dysfunction due to radical prostatectomy

Background: Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor (PDE5I) was proved to be effective for normal treatment, but the response rate of PDE5I is significantly low in patients with erectile dysfunction (ED) due to radical prostatectomy (RP). Low-intensity extracorporeal shockwave therapy (LI-ESWT) was proved to be useful as a safe modality to treat ED. My objective is to determine the efficacy of LI-ESWT for patients with severe ED due to RP. Methods: This study was an open-label prospective pilot study. Between September 2012 and May 2014, 12 patients with severe ED due to RP were enrolled into this protocol. LI-ESWT comprised two treatment sessions per week for three weeks, which were repeated after a three-week no-treatment interval. LI-ESWT was applied to the penile shaft and crura at five different sites. Assessment of erectile and sexual function during LI-ESWT was determined using the international index of erectile function-erectile function domain (IIEF-EF) score, erection hardness score (EHS), nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT), flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD), and adverse events. We used FMD with the plethysmography technique for objective evaluation of the participant’s penile hemodynamics and endothelial function (EnF). Results: At the one-month follow up examination, the IIEF-EF scores did not change after LI-ESWT. However, the erectile function parameters significantly improved from 0.50±0.19 to 1.13±0.30 for EHS (P=0.0078) and from 0.36±0.14 to 1.06±0.36 for NPT (P=0.0156). Also, the FMD parameters significantly improved from 13.8±1.3 to 24.0±2.5 (P=0.0032). None of the patients reported adverse events. Conclusions: This is the first study that assessed the efficacy of LI-ESWT for patients with severe ED due to RP. Based on our results, LI-ESWT appeared to have the potential to be an effective treatment option for severe ED patients.

화상 분석을 통한 선박 방오도료의 성능 평가

An accurate and reliable performance evaluation technique is indispensable for the development of marine antifouling coatings. The existing standard practice is however, based on the visual observation of biofouling settlement area, which is prone to the subjective judgment of the inspector. In spite of the above mentioned importance, a systematic and objective fouling evaluation technique has not yet been introduced. In this study, a novel quantitative antifouling performance evaluation method for marine antifouling paints is devised based on the image analysis of panel immersion test results. The present image analysis method is to quantify settlement area for each fouling category by distinctive color. The fouling categories are set as unfouled, biofilm, green algae, brown algae, calcareous animal and spongy animal with specific HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) color ranges. In order to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method, static immersion tests for three antifouling coatings were undertaken for two years.

Evaluation of Power System Reliability Considering Direct Load Control Effects

With the development of deregulated power systems and increase of prices in some hours of day, demand side management programs were noticed more by customers. In restructured power systems, DSM programs are introduced as DEMAND RESPONSE. In this paper we try to evaluate the effect of DR programs on power system reliability and nodal reliability. In order to reach to this target, Direct Load Control program, as the most common demand response program, is considered. Effects of demand response programs on system and nodal reliability of a deregulated power system are investigated using direct load control and economic load model, DC power-flow-based optimal load curtailment objective and reliability evaluation techniques. The proposed method is evaluated by numerical studies based on a small reliability test system (RBTS), and simulation results show that demand response program can improve the system and nodal reliability. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v3i2.2295