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The concept of the smart city has been created in response to the increasing numbers of people living in cities. Just as the development of technology has evolved rapidly, smart life has also emerged. The goal of the smart city is one day to enable all affairs of daily life to be completed with the single touch of a finger through cutting-edge technology. New and innovative information must be applied effectively to the industry. With the industrial revolution, propelled by the Internet of Things (IoT), big data and the cloud platform have birthed the “smart city,” integrating the IoT and the cloud through mobile devices and applying technology to fields like logistics, finance, healthcare, recreation, surveillance, and traffic transportation, thus providing people with greater well-being and convenience. Following the era of the big data knowledge economy, the IoT has become an important pillar of national economic development. The IoT is expected to provide substantial support for continued and sustainable development of the smart city. Therefore, effective use of the IoT has become an important topic in smart city development. The purpose of this paper is to build a conceptual framework of service innovation, relying on the smart city case of Taiwan. Based on a literature review, in-depth interviews, and case interviews, the proposed conceptual framework of IoT is rooted in the market, policy, and technical aspects. It incorporates eight steps: composition of the project team, service idea generation, service idea screening, development concept selection, design and development, service testing, commercialization, and service quality, to generate new service value and thereby create customer satisfaction. In fact, the IoT is designed to support the smart city vision; thus, this paper describes the various innovation modes of the smart city. Furthermore, the paper presents and discusses the technical solutions and best-practice guidelines adopted in the Taiwan Smart City project. Finally, it discusses the meaning and future research direction of the smart city through the use of the IoT. With wave after wave of digital development civilizing the city's evolution and with the phenomenon of Internet access through mobile phones for each person, the smart city of human factors is clearly coming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in open government data (OGD) around the world. The governments of various countries have encouraged firms to adopt OGD to develop innovative products and services to bring about social and economic benefits. This paper examines the factors influencing the adoption of OGD among firms in Taiwan to fill a gap that prior studies do not adequately address. Based on the sociotechnical perspective, we developed a research model that integrates the following factors that are central to adoption decisions of firms: top management support, government support, competitive pressure, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers. We examined this model through survey data from firms with experience in OGD adoption in Taiwan. The results show a significant positive relationship among top management support, competitive pressure, and the adoption of OGD by firms. This paper serves as a first attempt to contribute to advancing knowledge on OGD adoption at the firm level via empirically testing a research model that integrates factors within social and technical systems. This paper has significant implications for practitioners of enterprise information management and creates a valuable reference for other countries in the early stages of OGD initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Submarine cables are indispensable for offshore wind farms (OWFs) connected to a power grid. The submarine cable can cause certain degrees of impact on the system performance due to its different lengths, characteristics, electrical parameters, etc. This paper employs the power-system simulation software of Power System Simulator for Engineering (PSS/E) for modeling a future-scheduled OWF, i.e., a large-scale doubly-fed induction generator-based OWF of 200 MW, connected to Jang-Bin distribution substation of Taiwan Power System through five feeders, five circuit breakers, two step-up power transformers, a commercial submarine cable, and an underground cable. This paper simulates and compares the electrical quantities of the studied OWF with different operating capacities under various lengths of three types of commercial submarine cable. The transient surge peak voltages at the common bus of the OWF and the bus of Jang-Bin distribution substation subject to the switching of one of the five circuit breakers of the studied OWF under different lengths of the three types of commercial submarine cable are also compared using the power-system simulation software of ATPDraw in Alternative Transients Program (ATP) version of Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The annual output value of Taiwan’s wafer foundry and IC packaging test ranks first worldwide. The electronics industry has a complete industrial ecological chain in the supply chain system of global information and communication technology. In order to increase market competitiveness and increase the operational flexibility, manufacturing process outsourcing has become a trend in the business model of the electronics industry. The quality of the outsourcing affects the quality and function of the final product, the outsourcer selection is crucial to ensure the quality of the final product. This article takes the wire bonding process as an example, and proposes a fuzzy selection model of quality-based IC packaging process outsourcers. Then, this article selects the six standard deviation indicator that can fully reflect the process yield and quality level as the evaluation tool. Since the indicator contains unknown parameter, in order to improve the accuracy of estimation and overcome the uncertainty of measurement data, this paper applies mathematical programming to derive the confidence interval of six sigma quality index, and proposes a confidence-interval-based fuzzy testing meth as a green outsourcer selection tool to reduce the risk of misjudgment due to sampling errors and improve the accuracy of the selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is vital to have an exclusive modification in semiconductor production process because of meeting differentiated customer demands in dynamic and competitive global minuscule semiconductor technology market and the highly complex fabrication process. In this paper, we propose a control system based on the dynamic mixed-effect least-square support vector regression (LS-SVR) control system for overlay error compensation with stochastic metrology delay to minimize the misalignment of the patterning process. Moreover, for the stability of the control system in the presence of metrology delay and to deal with nonlinearity among the overlay factors, the novel Lyapunov-based kernel function is merged with the LS-SVR controller. The proposed controller’s operation has been validated and implemented by a major semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan. The experiments are verified that mixed-effect LS-SVR controller has the higher validity and higher efficiency in comparison with the exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) and threaded EWMA controllers which had been previously implemented at the company or applied in similar studies. Note to Practitioners—Due to high production complexity in semiconductor manufacturing process, a meticulous and intelligent process control is needed to achieve higher throughput and customer satisfaction. Monitoring a complex system is challenging because the process components and variables operate autonomously and interoperate with other manufacturing segments. This paper proposes a novel run-to-run (R2R) control system to compensate the overlay error during the photolithography process that efficiently deals with the high-mixed manufacturing environment and metrology delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The displacement of synchronous generators by converter interfaced energy renewable resource essentially reduces the system inertia, which can trigger under-frequency load shedding relay. To support the frequency containment, virtual inertia control (VIC) and fast frequency control (FFC) based on energy storage system (ESS) have been developed. Most of the existing VIC did not take into account the power constraints of the ESS. Although some of the FFC methods account for the ESS constraints, they ignore the intermediate steady-state (ISS) operating point of the primary frequency response (PFR). To counteract these problems, a model predictive control (MPC) based FFC, which considers the power limitations of the ESS, the frequency deviation constraint, and the ISS frequency tracking capability, is proposed in this paper. The proposed MPC only requires few local measurements, and the system parameters including inertia constants, onset time of inertia response and the ISS time of the PFR can be accurately estimated. To achieve the optimal control action and reduce computational burden, quadratic programming (QP) is incorporated in the proposed MPC. The proposed MPC is tested on a real Taiwan power system. The fast response and robustness of the proposed MPC has been justified by comparing with the state-of-the-art method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the semiconductor industry, the testing section has always played an important role. The testing section often requires engineers to judge the defect, which wastes a lot of time and cost. The accurate classification can provide useful information for engineers through neural networks. In this paper, we present a method for wafer map data augmentation and defect classification. Data augmentation is based on CNN encoder-decoder and the classification is based on depthwise separable convolutions. There are two datasets used, one is open dataset WM-811K and the other is built with a Taiwan company. We train two models with mobilenetV1 and V2 for the different datasets. The light-weight deep convolution can reduce model parameters and calculations, which is very efficient for the testing house with large production volumes. On two different data sets, our proposed method can reduce the number of parameters by 30% and 95%, and reduce the amount of calculation by 75% and 25%, respectively. The test accuracy of the first dataset is 93.95%. The second dataset test accuracy is 87.04%. After the data augmentation, accuracy is increased to 97.01% and 95.09%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In urban environments, Global Positioning System (GPS) signals are often reflected or blocked by buildings causing multipath effects and Non-Line-Of-Sight (NLOS) reception. These effects degrade GPS positioning performance. Although improved receiver and antenna design can reduce the multipath effect to some extent, NLOS elimination is limited due to sensor cost. Measurements based modelling methods have shown promise to reduce NLOS, while positioning accuracy is limited by the correct classification of the signal reception types. These limitations are addressed in this paper by developing an integrated algorithm using matching, Particle Swam Optimized Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (PSO-ANFIS) and a spatial city model. The user's location is determined by matching the high accuracy signal reception type determined by PSO-ANFIS with satellite visibility of each candidate position determined by the ray-tracing and a 3D city model. The results from a field test in an urban area in Taiwan show that the PSO-ANFIS based algorithm achieves a classification accuracy of 96%, 88%, and 91% for LOS, multipath and NLOS signals, respectively, which is superior to the other classification algorithms. The final horizontal positioning accuracies in terms of the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) are 3.20 m using a commercial receiver and 1.88 m using a geodetic receiver. The proposed algorithm has consistent improvements of 88% and 70% respectively compared to the traditional Weighted Least Square (WLS) based positioning method, and is the best compared to the other state-of-the art methods with the improvements ranging from 15% to 77% depending on the test conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fast retransmit, which reduces the sender’s waiting time before retransmitting a lost segment, is applied to guarantee data integrity with no data loss in transmission. Based on fast retransmit, many application protocols have been enhanced and evolved to ensure quality of service and reduce data transmission time. One of application protocols is the multipath transmission control protocol which is catholically applied in modern computer networks. Communication lines used in this kind of network have different states, namely, failure, partial failure, and maintenance. Therefore, a computer network with a fast retransmit can be classified as stochastic and is called a stochastic-flow computer network with a fast retransmit (SCNFR). This paper assesses the system reliability of SCNFR for the successful transmission of demand d through ${k}$ (${k} \,\, >1$) separate minimal paths (${k}$ SMiP) under the latency. An algorithm is proposed to find all minimal capacity vectors (MCVs) that satisfy the demand and latency. Then, the system reliability is computed based on all MCVs. We adopt two practical cases of the pan-European research and education network and the Taiwan academic network to explore the effectiveness of the algorithm. The results show that the system reliability can be classified as decision reference while the manager decides the better ${k}$ SMiP with higher system reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a power system, the transmission network is the backbone of electricity delivery from power plants to load centers; hence, it becomes a critical issue for electrical engineers to shorten the service restoration time after a fault occurrence on the transmission line. This application paper integrates the two- and three-terminal hybrid transmission line fault location algorithms based on synchronized phasor measurements into the proposed cloud-computing-based fault location system to inspect the feasibility and practicality of our algorithms for the real transmission-line incidents. The computing results are performed via Google Map for authorized personal computers and the application for intelligent mobile devices is developed to assist engineers in acquiring the fault-event information immediately as well as in figuring out the fault position intuitively and quickly due to its visualization and navigation. Last but not the least, the suggested fault location system has already been applied to the practical 345- and 161-kV transmission networks of Taiwan Power Company for achieving the combination of theory and practice. Up to the present, the proposed system still yields excellent performance verified by realistic fault data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If an extreme contingency strikes the Kinmen Island power system in Taiwan, it is very likely to cause blackouts. Although an underfrequency protection scheme has been applied, some drawbacks of the protection scheme hinder the Kinmen power system from avoiding blackouts. In the past decade, several blackouts have occurred in the Kinmen power system. To avoid further possible blackouts, a special protection system (SPS) is summoned. This paper describes the design guidelines and deployment procedures of an SPS for the Kinmen power system. The design depends on the Kinmen power system characteristics, and the deployment hinges upon the supervisory control and data acquisition system. Exquisite software was also developed to testify the Kinmen system SPS. Operational records have demonstrated that the proposed SPS can indeed prevent blackouts from occurring in the Kinmen power system. The design, implementation, and operation of the SPS dealt with in this paper might foster further deployments of other SPSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake early warning system uses high-speed computer network to transmit earthquake information to population center ahead of the arrival of destructive earthquake waves. This short (10 s of seconds) lead time will allow emergency responses such as turning off gas pipeline valves to be activated to mitigate potential disaster and casualties. However, the excessive false alarm rate of such a system imposes heavy cost in terms of loss of services, undue panics, and diminishing credibility of such a warning system. At the current, the decision algorithm to issue an early warning of the onset of an earthquake is often based on empirically chosen features and heuristically set thresholds and suffers from excessive false alarm rate. In this paper, we experimented with three advanced machine learning algorithms, namely, $K$ -nearest neighbor (KNN), classification tree, and support vector machine (SVM) and compared their performance against a traditional criterion-based method. Using the seismic data collected by an experimental strong motion detection network in Taiwan for these experiments, we observed that the machine learning algorithms exhibit higher detection accuracy with much reduced false alarm rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optimal planning model of the sectional switch and tie line for the distribution network is proposed considering the tradeoff between the system reliability and economy. First, the fault incidence matrices are established for the distribution network, and the explicit analytical expression of the system reliability index is realized by the algebraic operation of the fault incidence matrices and fault parameter vectors. Then, the 0–1 integer quadratically constrained optimization model is established for the sectional switch configuration considering the capacity constraint of the tie line. Finally, the sectional switches and tie lines are optimized jointly to ensure the economic investment and maximize the system reliability. The distribution network in Taiwan Power Company is used to verify the applicability of the proposed optimization method. Compared with the intelligent optimization algorithm, the mathematical programming method in this paper can always find the global optimal switch configuration quickly. In addition, the influence of the tie line capacity constraints on the sectional switch configuration is also considered, which can provide practical reference for the power network planners in the optimization design of the distribution network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the semiconductor manufacturing industry the development of single index assessing the equipment health condition is urgent, and thus the dashboard can be used for monitoring thousands of equipment. This paper proposes a novel equipment health index (EHI) framework and a Hotelling T-squared index (HTI) to monitor equipment and support preventive maintenance in real time in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. The EHI framework consists of data preprocessing, statistical process control, analytic hierarchy process, and a comprehensive single index representing the health condition of equipment. It considers different types of the univariate control charts for each status variable identification (SVID), and aggregates the scores corresponding to the control charts throughout the hierarchical structure. The HTI considers the correlation among the selected SVIDs and builds a multivariate index by using Hotelling T-squared statistic. An empirical study of Taiwan’s leading semiconductor assembly manufacturer finds that both the EHI and the HTI supported monitoring thousands of pieces of equipment in real time. In practice, firms can rapidly troubleshoot the root causes of failures by the decomposition of EHI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most catch up studies focus on “external” foreign sources of technological learning as a means of building up latecomer technological capability. By contrast, strategic management studies in advanced countries center on the “internal” sources of organizational learning and routines (including R&D) within a firm, aimed at developing and renewing its knowledge and its absorptive capacity. This paper draws from both groups of studies to examine how latecomer firms accumulate in-house knowledge bases and assimilate foreign knowledge to create strategic innovation capabilities. We propose a clear three-stage development framework to examine two leading firms, AU Optronics (AUO) and Chimei Innolux (CMI), in Taiwan's flat panel display industry. This paper shows the coevolution of the firms’ knowledge bases and external foreign sources of knowledge over time. We find that, with their increasing knowledge bases and strategic advancement over time, the firms are able to benefit from knowledge transfer; to build up their high-level innovative capabilities, and in the process to move from junior to senior status with foreign firms. These developments appear to allow leading firms to move “across” the technological frontier, contributing to a strengthening competitive position in the international market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Variations of the ionosphere can significantly disrupt synthetic aperture radar (SAR) acquisitions and interferometric measurements of ground deformation. In this paper, we show how the ionosphere can also strongly modify C-band interferograms despite its smaller influence at higher frequencies. Thus, ionospheric phase screens should not be neglected: their compensation improves the estimation of ground deformation maps. The split-spectrum method is able to estimate the dispersive ionospheric component of the interferometric phase; we describe the implementation of this method for the burst modes TOPS and ScanSAR to estimate and remove ionospheric phase screens. We present Sentinel-1 interferograms of the 2016 Taiwan earthquake and ALOS-2 interferograms of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which show strong ionospheric phase gradients, and their corrected versions. Finally, to validate the results and better understand the origin of these ionospheric variations, we compare the estimated differential ionosphere with global Total Electron Content maps and local Global Positioning System measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dynamic capabilities have been widely discussed in the past decade but how the determinants of dynamic capabilities affect a firm's competitive advantage has not been fully explored. This paper develops a quantitative method to investigate how a firm's dynamic capabilities affect a firm's competitive advantage. This study examines the developed hypotheses through a questionnaire survey of 165 firms together with a number of interviews drawn from Taiwan's information and communication technology industry. The results suggest that three determinants of dynamic capabilities (i.e., path, process, and position) influence a technological firm's competitive advantage in different ways. Both position and process have direct positive impacts on firm competitive advantage while position also has a mediating effect on the relationship between process and firm competitive advantage. This paper closes with theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Virtual Metrology (VM) is a method to conjecture manufacturing quality of a process tool based on data sensed from the process tool and without physical metrology operations. VM has now been designated by the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative and International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors as one of the focus areas for the next-generation factory realization roadmap of the semiconductor industry. This paper defines the VM automation levels, proposes the concept of automatic virtual metrology (AVM), and develops an AVM system for automatic and fab-wide VM deployment. The example of automatic VM model refreshing for chemical vapor deposition (CVD) tools is also illustrated in this paper. The AVM system has been successfully deployed in a fifth-generation thin-film-transistor-liquid-crystal-display (TFT-LCD) factory in Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The west coast and islands of Taiwan have abundant wind resource, which offers a great opportunity for large-scale offshore wind power generation. In Taiwan, the first stage of the offshore wind farms at the Jhang-Bin and Penghu areas has been planned. In particular, the Jhang-Bin wind farm will become the first and one of the largest wind farms in Taiwan. Therefore, its impacts on system operation and security have to be investigated and studied in advance. Following a general connection design discussion, this paper is consist of four major system impact analyses: load flow, fault current, voltage variation, and transient stability. Moreover, three types of typical wind turbines have been adopted in this paper in order to compare their performances on the wind farm integration system. From the simulation results, some significant conclusion and recommendations have been extracted, which would contribute to the first offshore wind farm development in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents both steady-state performance and dynamic simulations of a commercial wind farm (WF) in Taiwan through field measurement results and computer simulations. The companion paper in Part II discusses the dynamic and transient analyzed results of using current-limit reactors (CLRs) and load tap changers on power-quality improvement of the studied WF. With 23 2-MW DFIG-type wind turbine generators, this WF is connected to the 161-kV extra high-voltage substation of Taiwan Power System through a 23/161-kV 60-MVA step-up main transformer from six feeders with CLRs. Through comparing field measured results, this paper establishes a simulation model to simulate and analyze the steady-state and dynamic characteristics of the studied WF which is subject to disturbance conditions under different wind-speed conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the effects of installing variable current-limit reactors (CLRs) and adjusting load tap changers (LTCs) on the performance of a commercial wind farm in Taiwan using computer simulations. The companion paper (Part I) demonstrates the field-measured results, simulation model, and simulation results of the studied Jang-Bin wind farm with 23 2-MW doubly fed induction generator-type wind turbine generators connected to the utility system through a 23/161-kV 60-MVA step-up main transformer (MT) from six feeders. Six CLRs, which were originally designed to limit short-circuit currents under faulted conditions, are connected in series with the six feeders. The LTCs of the MT are used to adjust/regulate the secondary-side voltage at the 23-kV bus. Some simulated steady-state and transient results of the studied wind farm with variable values of the proposed CLRs and LTCs are analyzed and compared. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a technique for frequency-partitioned spectrum estimation (FPSE), which is used in the National Taiwan University Wireless Health Advanced Monitoring Bio-Diagnosis System for electrocardiogram analysis. A process for analyzing the RR interval (which is a time series formed by the heat-beat duration that represents heart-rate variations) in conjunction with the fuzzy clustering technique is proposed for arrhythmia recognition. FPSE helps reduce data transmission errors and allows the computational load to be moved to a remote server; however, it suffers from waveform deterioration during reconstruction of the signal power spectrum. To compensate for this problem, this paper proposes a modified FPSE approach that imposes an additional boundary constraint to ensure that the estimated spectrum is smooth. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is more effective at recovering the original frequency information and achieves a globally asymptotic trend. The proposed arrhythmia recognition procedure was applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Boston's Beth Israel Hospital (MIT-BIH) database (developed by MIT and Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center), which demonstrated that it is both very convenient and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For isolated power systems, an efficient and effective ancillary services market is one of the most important tools to ensure the system security and service quality. It is recognized that pumped storage units can play a unique role in the operation of isolated power systems. As part of the introduction of the ancillary services for Taiwan, a study was performed to identify the role and value of pumped storage units in the fast-response reserve (FRR). This paper analyzes the actual dispatching schedules of pumped storage units in the Taiwan Power System (TPS) to provide FRR when system was operated under seriously insufficient conditions for the year 2004. The results are used to quantify the value of pumped storage units in the ancillary services. Since the dispatching schedules of pumped storage units determined the cost of FRR in the TPS, the actual operating experience of pumped storage units studied in this paper can be used to evaluate the impact on the system security and to further define the role of pumped storage units in the ancillary services market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lungmen Nuclear Power Project (LMNPP), under construction in Taiwan, consists of two GE Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) units, each with 1350 MW electrical output. Major Human-System Interfaces (HSIs) of LMNPP are different from traditional operating BWRs or ABWRs. Video display units (VDUs) are the main human-system interface for operators to manipulate and to know the status of the equipment and plant information. Based upon NUREG-0711, the applicable human factors engineering (HFE) guideline in the design of HSIs has been adopted. An important aspect of the Lungmen HFE program has been the direct involvement of the end user, Taiwan Power Company (TPC), throughout the design development and implementation to ensure that the process for the design is compliant with the HFE principles, and that the necessary displays, control, and alarms are provided to support the identified personnel tasks. This paper reviews the applicable HFE principles and the HSI design process including verification and validation (V&V) process in the design of HSIs for the LMNPP. This paper also presents three topics of interest in the LMNPP HSI design development and implementation process-validation with simulator, alarm auto reset, and VDU operational configuration strategy. The objective for developing the VDU operational configuration strategy was, after appropriate V&V, to reinforce operation discipline and optimize operator crew task assignments and workload during typical operations, and to confirm the need for an intensive training program that addresses the knowledge and skill requirements of the operators to meet the task characteristics and the responses of the plant processes. The results to date and implications for going forward from this process are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the power load composition of an isolated power system using a load survey and estimates wind power generation with a probabilistic network. The typical load pattern of various customer classes is derived, which are then used to derive the total power consumption of all customers within each class. A probabilistic neural network is used to solve the win power generation based on the wind speed for an offshore island in Taiwan. With the hourly wind speed and load composition, the power generation of diesel generators was obtained. Results of this paper demonstrate that wind power generation can economically and effectively replace the power generation of the island's diesel power plant and provide partial power-supply capability for the net peak load requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a practical case for the safety assessment of ground grid design at 161/69-kV indoor-type and out- door-type substations in the system of Taiwan Power Company (TPC). For a substation grounding system to be safe, the touch and step voltages should be limited below the minimum tolerable voltages. Since the mesh voltage is usually the worst possible touch voltage inside an ac substation (excluding transferred potentials), the mesh voltage is used as the criteria for a safe ground grid design. In other words, safety assessment of a ground grid design at 161/69-kV indoor-type and outdoor-type substations in the TPC system is referred to as a procedure by which the mesh and step voltages at substations are computed and compared to the minimum touch and step voltages. Computation results of safety assessment for humans with 50- and 70-kg body weight are quantified in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the maximum potential rise on the traction earth (TE) conductor caused by stray currents in the Taipei Rail Transit Systems (TRTS). The stray current from the TRTS will flow into the earth due to the voltage difference along the running rails caused by the traction currents returning to the substations. The potential rise of 0.1 V is admitted in international recommendations as the maximum acceptable value for corrosion protection of utilities outside a dc railway system. Since TRTS is one of the dc-traction rail transit systems, it may cause corrosion or other effects by stray currents to the existing underground metallic structures. As a result, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether the maximum potential rise on the TE conductor caused by stray currents from IRTS is greater than the maximum permissible value 0.1 V or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design, implementation, and field measurements of a prototype marine-current power generation system (MCPGS) for capturing energy from marine current. The studied prototype MCPGS employs the flowing marine-current energy near the Cross-Sea Bridge, Peng-Hu Island, Taiwan. The design of the prototype MCPGS has to meet the practical marine-current flowing conditions and the severe environmental conditions in the ocean of Peng-Hu Island. The designed MCPGS unit consists of a three-blade marine-current turbine, a gearbox, a three-phase permanent-magnet generator, and a power converter that is used for converting generated energy to be stored in the battery. Field measured results for the studied MCPGS under different practical marine-current speeds in Peng-Hu Island are performed and analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainfall-induced landslides are a major threat in Taiwan, particularly during the typhoon season. A precise survey of landslides after a super event is a critical task for disaster, watershed, and forestry land management. In this paper, we utilize high spatial resolution multispectral optical imagery and a digital elevation model (DEM) with an object-oriented analysis technique to develop a scheme for the recognition of landslides using multilevel segmentation and a hierarchical semantic network. Four case studies are presented to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed scheme. Three kinds of remote sensing imagery, namely pan-sharpened FORMOSAT-2 satellite images, aerial digital images from Z/I digital mapping camera, and images acquired by a digital single lens reflex camera mounted on a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle are used. An accuracy assessment is accomplished by evaluating three test sites containing hundreds of landslides associated with the Typhoon Morakot. The input data include ortho-rectified image and DEM. Four spectral and one topographic object features are derived for semiautomatic landslide recognition. The threshold values are determined semiautomatically by statistical estimation from a few training samples. The experimental results show that the proposed approach can counteract the commission/omission errors and achieve missing/branching factors at less than 0.12 with a quality percentage of 81.7%. The results demonstrate the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed landslide recognition scheme even when different optical sensors are utilized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the consciousness of human beings in preserving the world increases, the demand of alternative energy resources has been expanding exponentially in recent years, and wind power is one of the most promising renewable energy resources. Taiwan, with its abundant coastal wind resources and good geographical conditions, is very suitable for developing wind farms. The development and implementation of renewable energy regulations have defined a direction for future renewable energy development in Taiwan. This also shows Taiwan's determination to follow the footsteps of the developed countries and the commitment to environmental protection. Therefore, the decision making of wind farms has become the most important link for the construction of wind farms in the future. This paper proposed a fuzzy analytic network process with benefit–opportunity–cost–risk approach to systemize the complicated decision making of wind farm site selection. A case study is carried out to examine the proposed approach and to evaluate the performance of several existing wind farms in Taiwan. By adopting the systematic analysis method, the most suitable wind farm can be determined, and the results can be references for planning and development of wind power industry in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a new method to forecast the Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index (TAIEX) using fuzzy time series and automatically generated weights of multiple factors. The proposed method uses the variation magnitudes of adjacent historical data to generate fuzzy variation groups of the main factor (i.e., the TAIEX) and the elementary secondary factors (i.e., the Dow Jones, the NASDAQ and the M1B), respectively. Based on the variation magnitudes of the main factor TAIEX and the elementary secondary factors of a particular trading day, it constructs the occurrence vector of the main factor and the occurrence vectors of the elementary secondary factors on the trading day, respectively. By calculating the correlation coefficients between the numerical data series of the main factor and the numerical data series of each elementary secondary factor, respectively, it calculates the relevance degree between the forecasted variation of the main factor and the forecasted variation of each elementary secondary factor. Based on the correlation coefficients between the numerical data series of the main factor and the numerical data series of each elementary secondary factor on a trading day, it automatically generates the weights of the occurrence vector of the main factor and the occurrence vector of each elementary secondary factor on the trading day, respectively. Then, it calculates the forecasted variation of the main factor and the forecasted variation of each elementary secondary factor on the trading day, respectively, to obtain the final forecasted variation on the trading day. Finally, based on the closing index of the TAIEX on the trading day and the final forecasted variation on the trading day, it generates the forecasted value of the next trading day. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The septum magnet bends the injection beam before the kicker magnet. The septum magnet is located near the storage ring in the Taiwan Photon Source (TPS). As the space from the magnet wall to the vacuum chamber of the ring is less than 3 mm, the leakage field of the septum magnet thus influences the stability of the electron beam in the storage ring. The main field and the leakage field of a septum of the direct-drive type are compared to one of the eddy-current type. The effects of the vacuum chamber and \mu-metal are simulated with full-sine and half-sine current pulses with the OPERA-2D TR analysis module; measurement results are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Temporary gate shortages and stochastic flight delays (including late departures or arrivals and early arrivals) are common problems that often occur simultaneously in real-time airport operations. The aim of this paper is to design a gate reassignment model to deal with temporary gate shortages and stochastic flight delays. This is done by allowing the violation of gate reassignment constraints in the model. A numerical test was carried out, based on data from the operations of the Taiwan Taoyuan Airport (a major international airport in Taiwan), to demonstrate the performance of the proposed model. A comparison of the proposed model and a traditional reassignment model, as well as major findings related to the test results, are also discussed and presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The severe insulation breakdown on one medium-voltage (MV) switchgear led to a complete blackout of Taipower's 3rd nuclear power plant on March 18th, 2001. This has been one of the most serious incidents during the past 30 years of Taipower's nuclear generation and while the cause of the event was a combination of design, maintenance, and equipment aging issue, it is apparent that repeated switching operation on the extra-high-voltage (EHV) side eventually caused this severe insulation breakdown on MV switchgear. Very-fast transient overvoltage (VFTO) is the phenomenon of transient overvoltage generated during switching operation characterized by a very short rise time of 4 to 100 ns. Prior research on this topic focused on VFTO's impact on the EHV side of the transformer and this paper presents the field measurement result together with long-duration multiple-restrike simulation for the VFTO transferred from the EHV side to the MV system through the power transformers. It is shown that this VFTO can be as high as 7 times the rated line-to-ground peak voltage and the maximum VFTO often occusr neither at the first nor at the last strike due to the superposition of restriking voltage on top of oscillation voltage created by prior strikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product delivery time is as vital as the yield rate for semiconductor manufacturing companies since the industry has become highly competitive and more dynamic nowadays. In the manufacturing process, appropriate parameter settings can shorten the machine cycle time and in turn the product delivery time. This paper presents the application of 'IF-THEN' rules extracted from a multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network to tune moulding machine parameters to improve the machine cycle time. We can extract the 'IF-THEN' rules by scrutinising the connecting weights inside the MLP network. Historical genuine operating data of a moulding machine input parameters and cycle time were collected from an integrated circuit packaging company in Taiwan. The data were fitted in with an MLP network, and the 'IF-THEN' rules were extracted afterwards. The 'IF-THEN' rules not only indicate which input parameters dominate the machine cycle time but also explain how to tune them. We have applied the extracted rules to tune the moulding machine parameters. Practical results show that the moulding machine cycle time agrees very well with the extracted rules, and also justify the feasibility of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ultimate goal of an electric utility is to create maximum profit while maintaining reliability and security of the power supply. The operation and control of power system is sensitive to system demand. Therefore, improvements in load-forecasting accuracy will lead to cost savings and enhance system security. Due to Taiwan's distinct climate characteristics, it is difficult to obtain satisfactory load-forecasting results by treating the whole island as a single region. In addition, weather factors, such as temperature, relative humidity, and the Heat Index (HI) (a human-perceived equivalent temperature) may also affect load-consumption patterns. This paper proposes a multiregion short-term load-forecasting methodology, taking into account the HI to improve load-forecasting accuracy in Taiwan Power Company's (Taipower's) system. The results show that adopting the HI as a parameter can effectively improve the accuracy if the temperature of the region under investigation is above 27 ^\circ\C (80 ^ \circ\F). By considering both the load/weather diversity and the HI, further improvements to the load forecasting for the Taipower system during summer can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the protective relay settings of tie line tripping and design of load-shedding scheme for an integrated steelmaking industrial power system to ensure system stability after a severe fault contingency on an external utility power network. The transient stability analysis of the industrial power system with the equivalent external Taipower system has been executed for an actual fault contingency in 2005. The mathematical models of 13 cogeneration units in the plant and several large generators of a nearby Taipower thermal plant are included in the computer simulation to solve the system transient response for the fault contingency to verify the accuracy of the models used. To prevent tripping of critical loads due to an external fault contingency, the undervoltage and under/overfrequency relays with proper settings are applied for the tripping of external and internal tie lines. To restore system stability of the industrial power system for the islanding operation after tie line tripping, load shedding is designed to disconnect a proper amount of noncritical loads by considering the governor response and protective constraints of cogeneration units. According to the transient stability analysis of the industrial power system with the proposed protective relay settings and load-shedding scheme, it is found that the voltage sag and oscillation problem caused by fault contingency in the external Taipower system can be mitigated if the tie line tripping is executed in time to prevent the shutdown of critical loads and tripping of cogeneration units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent mobile devices have already contained a low- cost FM receiving function due to the continuing improvements in the device manufacturing. This paper shows that positioning based on FM signal is an alternative radio option while meeting the FCC requirement. We present a probabilistic location system using a wider-covered and longer-lived FM infrastructure. The performance is evaluated in two different metropolitan-scale environments including National Taiwan University (NTU) and Wen-Shan rural area. Both results show that the FM based location system not only satisfies the FCC requirement but also provides a comparable or even better performance to GSM based solution. Moreover, we completely analyze the realistic radio measurements of FM and GSM from four perspectives including temporal variation, spatial separation, measurement correlation and spectrum allocation. Most FM measurements are observed to provide a lower temporal variation but a weaker spatial separation than GSM. Fortunately, we discover that the lack of spatial separation can be compensated by adding additional sensed channels. This property is useful especially for a rural area where the available GSM base stations are limited and distant. Furthermore, we point out that the spatial separation of GSM signal decreases when the signal level is weaker than -90 dBm. At such a condition, FM reports a better accuracy than GSM even with the fewer channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the ancillary services, a great number of cost allocation strategies have been broadly developed in the deregulated environment. Generally, the utilization of such services can be determined by directly evaluating the actual amount of the usage or by indirectly analyzing the fair/reasonable contribution/attribution to the market participants. In the case of the primary frequency regulation (PFR) service, which is operated by the participating generating units to maintain the real-time balance between the generation and load, the discussion of the PFR service attributed to the load side has still received relatively little attention. In this paper, a new strategy of the cost allocation of the PFR service from the customer side is proposed. Two main factors, the load fluctuation and the frequent demand change, are considered to figure out the PFR reaction relating to the different substations. The design of a scheme for determining the cost allocation index of the PFR service can be applied to the presently exiting power market. In addition, the actually load series recorded from the extra-high voltage (EHV) substations of the Taipower system located in northern, central, and southern Taiwan are meticulously analyzed and utilized to verify the feasibility and practicability of cost allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly important role that technologies play in today's business success is well known. To ensure proper selection and development of the key technologies, a deliberate technology plan is needed. In this paper, a strategic technology planning framework is proposed. A hierarchical decision model and its sensitivity analysis are presented as two major steps of the framework to provide effective technology assessment and to generate technology scenarios. The hierarchical model links an organization's competitive goals and strategies in evaluating the technology alternatives' overall contributions to business success; the sensitivity analysis helps to forecast and implement possible future changes in the economic environment, industry policies, and organization strategies. With the proposed framework, organizations can start to implement their technology plans synoptically and follow up with incremental adaptations as necessary. A case study on Taiwan's semiconductor foundry industry is presented to demonstrate the model in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The FORMOSAT-3 mission, also known as Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC), is the third major project of the Formosa Satellite (FORMOSAT) series implemented by the National Space Organization of Taiwan. FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC is a joint Taiwan/U.S. mission consisting of six identical low Earth orbit satellites. All six cluster satellites were successfully launched by a single Minotaur launch vehicle on April 15, 2006. The retrieved global positioning system (GPS) radio occultation (RO) data have been freely available online to the science community since shortly after the completion of satellite bus in-orbit checkout. Having completed the verification and validation, the worldwide science communities are highly satisfied with the RO data. Scientists have hailed the RO sensors as offering the most accurate, precise, and stable thermometers in space. After one year in orbit, all six FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites were in good condition (except FM2, which had power shortage issues) and were on their way toward the final constellation of six separate orbit planes with 30° separation. Four out of six satellites had already reached their final mission orbit of 800 km by mid-May 2007. Together, the six satellites have generated a total of more than 2500 RO data per day. However, only 50%-70% of the RO data as received one year after launch could be retrieved into useful atmosphere profiles. The retrieved RO data, about 1800 per day on average, have been assimilated into numerical weather prediction models by many major weather forecast centers and research institutes. This paper provides an overview of the constellation mission, the spacecraft system performance after one year in orbit, the technical challenges we have encountered, and the performance enhancements we have accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The FORMOSA Satellite Series No. 3/Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC) spacecraft constellation consisting of six low-earth-orbiting satellites is the world's first operational Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation mission. The mission has been jointly developed by the National Space Organization of Taiwan and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research of the U.S. in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, and the Naval Research Laboratory for three onboard payloads, including a GPS Occultation Receiver, a triband beacon, and a tiny ionospheric photometer. The FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission was successfully launched from Vandenberg into the same orbit plane of the designated 516-km circular parking orbit altitude on April 15, 2006. After the six satellites completed the in-orbit checkout activities, the mission was started immediately at the parking orbit for in-orbit checkout, calibration, and experiment of three onboard payloads. Individual spacecraft thrust burns for orbit raising were performed to begin the constellation deployment of the satellites into six separate orbit planes. All six FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites are maintained in a good state of health except spacecraft flight model no. 2, which has had power shortages. Five out of the six satellites had reached their final mission orbits of 800 km as of November 2007. This paper provides an overview of the constellation spacecraft design, constellation mission operations, constellation deployment time-line evolution, associated spacecraft mass property and moment of inertia results, orbit-raising challenges, and lessons learned during the orbit-raising operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an expert system is designed to derive the rephasing strategy of laterals and distribution transformers to enhance three-phase balancing of distribution systems. The heuristic rules adopted by distribution engineers are incorporated in the knowledge base of the expert system in the problem-solving process. The neutral current reduction algorithm is developed to support the inference engine to derive the rephasing strategy to reduce the neutral current of distribution feeder so that the tripping of over-current relay can be prevented and the customer service interruption cost and labor cost to execute the rephasing strategy can be justified by the power loss reduction obtained. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed expert system to enhance three-phase balance, a practical distribution feeder in Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) is selected for computer simulation. By minimizing the objective function subjected to the rephasing rules, the rephasing strategy has been derived to identify the laterals and distribution transformers for phasing adjustment. After executing the proposed rephasing strategy by Taipower engineers, the phase currents and neutral current of test feeder has been collected by the SCADA system to verify the reduction of neutral current. The power loss reduction obtained by three-phase balancing has been solved by three-phase load flow analysis, which is then used to justify the customer service interruption cost and labor cost for rephasing of test feeder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach based on Weibull distribution to determine the capacity of wind turbine generators (WTGs) using capacity factor (CF), normalized average power (PN), and the product of CF and PN under different values of tower height and rated wind speed. Five locations for installation of WTG in Taiwan are practically examined. The proposed Weibull distribution is employed to represent probability distribution of wind speed variation, while the important relationships among mean wind speed (MWS), standard deviation of wind speed, and both scale and shape parameters of the Weibull distribution are also derived. The cost of energy (COE) and capital costs of WTG under different tower heights and various locations are also determined. It can be concluded from the simulation results of five installation locations of WTG in Taiwan that suitable values for both shape parameter and scale parameters of Weibull distribution as well as wind turbine capacity are identically important for selecting locations of installing WTG. The scale parameter of Weibull distribution also significantly affects COE, and it is important to determine whether a wind farm is good or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop an intercity bus scheduling model for a variable market share. The proposed model, unlike the past intercity bus scheduling models, does not assume a fixed market share. Instead, passenger choice behaviors in competitive markets are considered. The model is formulated as a nonlinear mixed integer program that is characterized as nondeterministic polynomial-time hard. We develop a solution algorithm to efficiently solve the model. The test results, which are based on a major Taiwan intercity bus carrier, show the good performance of the model and the solution algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is to construct a current-transformer (CT) model based on the Jiles-Atherton (J-A) theory of ferromagnetic hysteresis using transient analysis of control systems (TACS) functions within the Electromagnetic Transients Program (EMTP) in a closed-loop manner. The J-A theory of ferromagnetic hysteresis is presented by the nonlinear first-order ordinary differential equations and inclusive of five parameters that can be found by measurements of hysteresis characteristic. We can use TACS functions within EMTP to describe the J-A theory of ferromagnetic hysteresis. The powerful advantage of this way is the interaction between the electrical network and TACS in EMTP. Compared with the CT model based on the type 96 nonlinear hysteresis inductor, the simulated result of the CT model based on the J-A theory of ferromagnetic hysteresis is almost the same in steady-state situations, but apparently different in a fault transient situation. The analysis and simulation of the actual measured fault profiles in the Taiwan power system is an example of the validation of this proposed model. Therefore, this proposed CT model based on the J-A theory of ferromagnetic hysteresis has the analysis capability of the transient response. The flexibility of TACS makes the simulation of any other situation easier and is another advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper developed an approach based on data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index to investigate the performance of power plants and conducted an empirical study with eight thermal power plants in Taiwan. The analysis resuIts show the productivity improvements, and thus, help Taiwan Power Company to monitor and diagnose changes in the productivity of its thermal power plants. Furthermore, this study also provides specific directions for improvements to increase competitiveness in the face of the continuing liberalization of the Taiwanese power generation market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug-related problems, particularly those that result from sub- or overtherapeutic doses of high-alert medications, have become a growing concern in clinical medicine. In this paper, we use a model-tree-based regression technique (namely, M5) and support vector machine (SVM) for regression to develop learning-based systems for predicting the adequacy of a vancomycin regimen. We empirically evaluate each system's accuracy in predicting patients' peak and trough concentrations in different clinical scenarios characterized by renal functions and regimen types. Our data consist of 1099 clinical cases that were collected from a major tertiary medical center in southern Taiwan. We also examine the use of Bagging for enhancing the prediction power of the respective systems and include in our evaluation a salient one-compartment model for performance benchmark purposes. Overall, our evaluation results suggest that both M5 and SVM are significantly more accurate than the benchmark one-compartment model in predicting patients' peak and trough concentrations across all investigated clinical scenarios. MS appears to benefit considerably from Bagging, which has a positive but seemingly smaller effect on SVM. Taken together, our findings indicate supervised learning techniques that are capable of effectively supporting clinicians' use of vancomycin or similar high-alert drugs in their patient care and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fuzzy set based modeling of wind power generation. The wind power generation has been solved by the proposed fuzzy generation for an island in Taiwan. The cost effectiveness of wind power generation is then evaluated by calculating the avoided generation cost of diesel generators. The load survey study has been performed to find the typical daily load patterns of various customer classes. With the typical load patterns and total energy consumption by each customer class, the load composition and daily power profile of the isolated power system are therefore derived. The wind power generation of eight wind turbines and the corresponding avoided generation cost is estimated by the fuzzy generation model according to the hourly wind speed. The power generation and the corresponding cost of diesel generators required to meet the system power demand with wind power generation have therefore been obtained. It is found that the wind power generation can economically and effectively substitute the generation cost of the diesel power plant and provide the partial power supply capability for the net peak load demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]