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In the context of project management, the attention given to project portfolio management has increased in recent years. The use of mathematical programming for portfolio management is also on the rise, because it integrates the project interactions with the multiple objectives of portfolio management into a single model. Among the possible objectives, recent studies have paid special attention to the emerging objective of future preparedness, which has not yet been incorporated into the existing mathematical models. This paper presents a mixed-integer nonlinear optimization model for portfolio selection that considers four main performance measures for project management, namely, value maximization, strategic alignment, balance, and future preparedness. Given the importance of the last measure, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete model that provides the marginal contribution and the best combination of projects according to the needs of the company. The model is tested using real data from two companies, one in Brazil and one in Canada, and the results obtained are coherent with their respective practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a data-driven method for estimating annual continuous dynamic rating of power transformers to serve the long-term planning purpose. Historically, research works on dynamic rating have been focused on real-time/near-future system operations. There has been a lack of research for long-term planning oriented applications. Currently, most utility companies still rely on static rating numbers when planning power transformers for the next few years. In response, this paper proposes a novel and comprehensive method to analyze the past 5-year temperature, loading and load composition data of existing power transformers in a planning region. Based on such data and the forecasted area load composition, a future power transformer's load shape profile can be constructed by using Gaussian Mixture Model. Then according to IEEE std. C57.91-2011, a power transformer thermal aging model can be established to incorporate future loading and temperature profiles. As a result, annual continuous dynamic rating profiles under different temperature scenarios can be determined. The profiles can reflect the long-term thermal overloading risk in a much more realistic and granular way, which can significantly improve the accuracy of power transformer planning. A real utility application example in Canada has been presented to validate and demonstrate the practicality and usefulness of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring the sea ice cover is important for both climate studies and ice operations, such as shipping. It is challenging to validate even basic essential variables, such as the sea ice extent, due to a lack of appropriate validation data. Instead of focusing on validation, this paper looks at the use of categorical triple collocation (CTC) for the task of quantitatively comparing three colocated data sets. CTC has been developed and used in earlier studies to rank binary data sets. In this paper, we extend earlier studies and bring in recent results from the binary classification community to estimate the class imbalance (the relative proportion of each class, ice or water). We then use this class imbalance to obtain quantitative estimates of the proportion correct of ice (sensitivity) and the proportion correct of water (specificity). The methodology is first tested using toy data, after which three data sets from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, on the east coast of Canada, are used. These data sets are from an ice–ocean model, a passive microwave sea ice concentration retrieval, and a sea ice concentration retrieval from synthetic aperture radar (SAR). By looking at both the sensitivity and the specificity, it is found that the passive microwave data have difficulty in recognizing ice during freeze-up, but they perform well at obtaining the correct water observations. This distinction cannot be made by ranking the data sets. The CTC method is compared with, and found to be complementary to, a validation using ice/water states from the interactive multisensor snow and ice mapping system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) is developing an experimental over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) with the potential for surveillance of Canada. Because of dynamically changing ionospheric conditions in the Earth’s high-latitude and polar regions, the operating OTHR transmission frequency and elevation angle need to be adjusted regularly to maintain constant illumination of downrange targets. In this paper, the feasible operating frequency and elevation angle radar parameters are determined for short- and long-range OTHR operation using 3-D ionosphere ray-tracing simulations. Together, the collection of all feasible radar configurations forms a characteristic profile which shifts and deforms as factors such as the time of day, season, and solar activity are varied. The range of operating frequencies and elevation angles obtained from this paper will aid developing the transmitter and receiver antenna layouts for experimental OTHR configurations in the poorly understood high-latitude and polar regions. These methods will also help to form the basis of the frequency monitoring systems (FMS) that will control the configuration of these polar OTHR systems in real time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant amount of green power is being installed at the distribution level through the installation of green power generation facilities in the U.S. and Canada. This paper discusses green-power-generating sources (of 10 MW or less), which are connected to the utility system at the distribution level, and their impact on the distribution system. This paper also discusses the impact of smart grid and whether this new technology can solve some of the issues raised in this paper. Distribution circuits are designed to supply radial loads. Therefore, the introduction of green generation could mean redistribution of fault and load currents on the feeder circuit, overvoltage, and ferroresonance, plus a possible loss of protection system coordination—all of which can result in customer outages. This paper discusses these issues which are generally not well understood by many distribution protection engineers and can adversely affect distribution system reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In power systems, an asset class is a group of power equipment that has the same function and shares similar electrical and/or mechanical characteristics. Predicting failures for different asset classes is critical for electric utilities toward developing cost-effective asset management strategies. Previously, physical age based Weibull distribution has been widely used for failure prediction. However, this mathematical model cannot incorporate asset condition data. As a result, the prediction cannot be very specific and accurate for individual assets. To solve this important problem, this paper proposes a novel and comprehensive data-driven approach based on asset condition data: K-means clustering as an unsupervised learning method is used to analyze the inner structure of historical asset condition data and produce the asset conditional ages; logistic regression as a supervised learning method takes in both asset physical ages and conditional ages to classify and predict asset operation statuses. Furthermore, an index called average aging rate is defined to quantify, track, and estimate the relationship between asset physical age and conditional age. This approach was applied to a medium-voltage cable class in an urban distribution system in West Canada. Case studies and comparison with standard Weibull distribution are provided. The proposed approach demonstrates higher accuracy measured by F1-Score than Weibull distribution method for asset class failure prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1999, BC Hydro installed optical fibers in the fluid channel of 525 kV self-contained fluid-filled submarine cables originally installed in the 1980s that connect substations in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada, for the purposes of monitoring temperatures. In combination with this work, a real-time monitoring was used to collect load data and measured temperatures in an effort to optimize the ratings of the cables. The dynamic thermal circuit rating system developed by the Electric Power Research Institute was applied to the 525 kV cables as part of a project to modify the system for support of the unique characteristics of the cable system installation. Specifically, the submarine cables utilize a parallel pipe water cooling system for the shore zones. This paper describes the software modifications that were implemented to enhance the dynamic rating system to model the unique characteristics of the 525 kV cable system and discusses how recorded data collected over several seasons were used to verify and refine the cable rating model. The resulting evaluation showed good agreement of the dynamic rating system calculations with measured results and helped the utility better understand the ratings on these circuits and permitted the utility to perform simulations to evaluate various loading conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes several small printed circuit board planar antennas that can be integrated with amplifiers for short-range vehicle wireless communication. The antennas are designed for the 315-MHz frequency band, which is commonly used for control and security devices in the USA and Canada. Each antenna has dimensions of 50 × 70 mm (much less than the free-space wavelength λ = 0.95 m) and is implemented on FR-4 dielectric substrate. These investigated antennas were compared with respect to input impedance, radiation resistance, radiation efficiency, directivity, directionality, bandwidth, matching system complexity, and gain. This paper also includes experimental verification of the final antenna design in the vehicle. It is shown that the antenna diversity method can increase communication range for remote keyless entry systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the recent development of a system for calibration of electrical instruments with harmonics measurement capability, such as revenue meters and power analyzers, under nonsinusoidal test conditions at National Research Council (NRC) Canada. The improvements implemented with respect to an earlier NRC calibration system are aimed at increasing the calibration accuracy in a wider frequency range. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In compensated distributed networks (CDN), minimizing the asymmetry in the shunt parameters of the power lines is a key factor for avoiding excessive neutral voltages which is necessary not only for safety but also for improving the sensitivity of detecting ground faults, particularly when bush-fire mitigation is a major concern. This paper offers a comprehensive analysis and modeling of the asymmetry of the power lines in CDN. Unlike the existing analyses which assume the asymmetry can be lumped in one phase, the proposed analysis is based on more practical assumption by considering the asymmetry in all of the phases of the power lines. The proposed analysis is used to develop an equivalent circuit for asymmetrical CDN which then used to develop a new method for calculating the per-phase asymmetries in the shunt parameters. The proposed method has been validated based on simulations of real networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses power-system instability and the importance of fast fault-clearing performance to aid in reliable production of power. An explanation regarding small-signal stability, high-impedance transmission lines, line loading, and high-gain fast-acting excitation systems is provided. Transient stability is discussed, including synchronizing and damping torques. The power-angle curve is used to illustrate how fault-clearing time and high initial response excitation systems can affect transient stability. The term "power-system stability" has become increasingly popular in generation and transmission. The sudden requirement for power-system stabilizers (PSSs) has created confusion about their applicability, purpose, and benefit to the system. This paper discusses the fundamentals of the PSS and its effectiveness. In today's paper industry, PSSs are being applied on larger machines in the northwest United States and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional connection of a generating station to the transmission grid typically requires either a new transmission line to an existing substation or building a new substation to segment an existing transmission line. Both of these options are capital intensive which often hurts economic viability especially small- or medium-size nonconventional generating stations. The direct connection to an existing transmission line, without the switching station, is the most economical solution to interconnect the generating station but it desensitizes the line protection and poses a risk to the ability of the protection to detect faults, particularly ground faults involving fault resistances. Multifunction relays, combined with communication-assisted schemes, now offer innovative solutions to overcome protection desensitization concerns. This paper describes these solutions which are successfully implemented by a large Canadian electric utility over the last two decades to tap connect numerous generators to the transmission grid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the rapid proliferation of cloud computing, the energy cost of datacenters and the impact of reactive power on the grid have become major concerns. This paper presents two energy management control schemes for distributed uninterruptible power supply (UPS) architectures utilizing lithium-ion ultracapacitors (LIC) for improved system efficiency and reactive power mitigation. One scheme is proposed for low-power servers with an internal dc bus, while another is proposed for medium-to-high-power server racks with an in-rack dc bus. The LIC and the dc bus interface with a bidirectional dc–dc converter, which allows the power supply unit to run in the optimal operating region for the improved system efficiency and power factor. The server-level UPS architecture is experimentally tested using a 200-kHz, bidirectional, multiphase dc–dc converter with hysteretic current-mode control, while achieving 33% reactive power mitigation. Based on the SciNet datacenter in Toronto, ON, Canada, a rack-level distributed UPS architecture is built in MATLAB, and system-level simulations indicate a 37% reduction in the reactive power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents guest editorial, published in the May 2000 issue of the periodical "IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering," vol. 26, no. 5. The Fifth International Conference on Software Reuse that was held in Victoria B.C., Canada, included papers, mini-workshops, panels, and tutorials dedicated to various aspects of the software reuse enterprise, software architecture, and reuse over the Internet. Out of the 31 papers that were presented, a select few were nominated by the program committee as representing special, innovative contributions. In addition to that the article presents information on the two papers related to major technological approaches to software reuse. The first paper, considers the problem of selecting the best realizations and algorithms for a general purpose data structure. The second paper, is concerned with the problem of adapting class libraries for specific requirements.

Tide refers to a phenomenon that causes the change of water level in oceans. Tidal level forecasting plays an important role in many real-world applications especially those related to oceanic and coastal areas. For instance, accurate forecasting of tidal level can significantly increase the vessels’ safety as an excessive level of tidal makes serious problems in the movement of vessels. In this work, we propose a deep learning-based prediction interval framework in order to model the forecasting uncertainties of tidal current datasets. The proposed model develops optimum prediction intervals (PIs) focused on the deep learning-based CNN-LSTM model (CLSTM), and nonparametric approach termed as the lower upper bound estimation (LUBE) model. Moreover, we develop a novel deep neuroevolution algorithm based on a two-stage modification of the gaining-sharing knowledge optimization algorithm to optimize the architecture of the CLSTM automatically without the procedure of trial and error. This leads to a decline in the complexity raises in designing manually the deep learning architectures, as well as an enhancement in the performance of the PIs. We also utilize coverage width criterion to establish an excellent correlation appropriately between both the PI coverage probability and PI normalized average width. We indicate the searching efficiency and high accuracy of our proposed framework named as MGSK-CLSTM-LUBE by examining over the practical collected tidal current datasets from the Bay of Fundy, NS, Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Canada and the world move rapidly toward increased reliance on wind power generation, self-excited induction generators (SEIGs) will play an important role in distributed wind power generation (DWPG). Understanding the significance and prospects of SEIGs in DWPG, first, this paper elucidates the significance of fault detection (FD) and voltage regulation (VR) in the aforementioned application. A comprehensive analysis of VR and faults on niche industrial 7.5-hp copper-rotor SEIG and conventional 7.5-hp aluminum-rotor SEIG is performed through numerical simulations, and the calculated results are validated through experimental investigations. Second, a twofold Daubechies-wavelet-transform-based module is designed for the following: 1) FD and 2) VR, respectively. A discrete-wavelet-transform-based algorithm is proposed and implemented on a low-cost embedded system to provide an economical solution for the aforementioned issues. Thereafter, the aforementioned schemes are tested, and results are investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Educational institutions pay careful attention to the design of program curricula, which represent a framework to meet institutional goals and missions. Of course, the success of any institution depends highly on the quality of its program curriculum. The development of such a curriculum and, more importantly, the evaluation of its quality are complex and time-consuming processes. This traditional approach requires many cumbersome manual iterations, making it a long and error-prone process. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a new curriculum support engine as an alternative approach. The proposed curriculum support engine is a Web-based application that helps in designing any program curriculum in real time. The engine incorporates several important features, allowing the verification of the proposed curriculum coherence and the generation of statistics necessary for academic and accreditation purposes. Useful viewing and editing tools are also provided. The proposed curriculum support engine is flexible and allows additional criteria that the curriculum designer can specify to be incorporated. In particular, the engine covers the Accreditation of Canadian Engineering Programs (CEAB), the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), and the Commission of Academic Accreditation of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of UAE (CAA-UAE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a work domain analysis of dam- age control on the Canadian Halifax Class frigate. Our analysis made use of the modeling construct of object worlds to help in defining the work domain to model and to help in understanding the results of this model compared to other work domain analyses developed in the naval domain. This paper makes a practical contribution through the presentation of a detailed example of work domain analysis in a new domain and a theoretical contribution by clarifying the use of object worlds in work domain analysis, analyzing the way in which object worlds can be understood in systems where the various stakeholders are closely coordinated and promoting object worlds as a way to control model scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To deal with the large volume of data produced by hyperspectral sensors, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has developed and patented two near lossless data compression algorithms for use onboard a hyperspectral satellite: successive approximation multi-stage vector quantization (SAMVQ) and hierarchical self-organizing cluster vector quantization (HSOCVQ). This paper describes the two compression algorithms and demonstrates their near lossless feature. The compression error introduced by the two compression algorithms was compared with the intrinsic noise of the original data that is caused by the instrument noise and other noise sources such as calibration and atmospheric correction errors. The experimental results showed that the compression error was not larger than the intrinsic noise of the original data when a test data set was compressed at a compression ratio of 20:1. The overall noise in the reconstructed data that contains both the intrinsic noise and the compression error is even smaller than the intrinsic noise when the data is compressed using SAMVQ. A multi-disciplinary user acceptability study has been carried out in order to evaluate the impact of the two compression algorithms on hyperspectral data applications. This paper briefly summarizes the evaluation results of the user acceptability study. A prototype hardware compressor that implements the two compression algorithms has been built using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and benchmarked. The compression ratio and fidelity achieved by the hardware compressor are similar to those obtained by software simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interconnection of generation to an electric distribution system, which is primarily designed to serve radial loads, must not compromise reliability and quality of supply to customers or safety of public and equipment. This paper presents criteria used by BC Hydro, the third largest utility in Canada, to determine the requirements for interconnecting a generating source to its distribution system. The presented criteria discuss tradeoff involved in specifying the grounding connection of interconnecting transformer or how the size of a distributed generator impacts protection upgrades within the utility system, out-of-step tripping duty on the feeder breaker, and requirement of transfer trip to avoid temporary overvoltages. These criteria are applied consistently and uniformly to minimize cost of interconnection engineering. They are based on sound engineering principles to ensure that interconnection upgrades specified are justifiable and defensible, if necessary, to the utility's regulator to ensure open access of the grid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a method for forecasting energy prices using artificial intelligence methods, such as neural networks and fuzzy logic, and a combination of the two. The new approach is compared with some of the exiting methods. Various factors affecting the market clearing price are investigated. Results for the Ontario electricity market are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we briefly describe the Argus spectrometer and its mission. We then focus on the process to determine the geolocation of the spectrometer's flight data. For the Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) Argus flight, we have used Simplified General Perturbations 4 (SGP4) propagation for position determination. Two sets of flight data are presented as examples. We estimate the uncertainty in the geolocation of Argus data using this method and investigate potential improvements for future Argus flights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an integrated simulation—optimization approach is proposed for annual planning of power restoration workforce related to an electricity distribution company in a province of Canada. Internal and external workforces are employed to perform maintenance actions and restore power after interruptions throughout the province. According to the electricity distribution network, the province is divided into a number of work locations (WL), each having local crews to perform maintenance actions and fix power interruptions. However, determining the size of the crew in each WL over the year is challenging because of high fluctuation in interruption frequency and consequently in projected demand during the year. The frequency of interruptions is affected by various factors such as geographical location, time calendar, and particularly weather conditions. The objective is to determine the optimal combination of internal and external workforce over the year to cover the interruptions across the province with minimum cost and minimum customer interruption duration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a new technique to analyze the electricity and transport sectors within a single integrated framework to realize an environmentally and economically sustainable integration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the electric grid, considering the most relevant planning uncertainties. The method is based on a comprehensive robust optimization planning that considers the constraints of both the electricity grid and the transport sector. The proposed model is justified and described in some detail, applying it to the real case of Ontario, Canada, to determine Ontario's grid potential to support PHEVs for the planning horizon 2008–2025. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Precise geolocation is one of the fundamental requirements for satellite imagery to be suitable for climate applications. The Global Climate Observing System and the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites identified the requirement for the accuracy of geolocation of satellite data for climate applications as 1/3 field of view (FOV). This requirement for the series of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration platforms cannot be met without implementing the ground control point (GCP) correction, particularly for historical data, because of limited accuracy of orbit modeling and knowledge of satellite attitude angles. This paper presents a new method for precise georeferencing of the AVHRR imagery developed as part of the new Canadian AVHRR processing system (CAPS) designed for generating high-quality AVHRR satellite climate data record at 1-km spatial resolution. The method works in swath projection and uses the following: 1) the reference monthly images from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer at 250-m resolution; 2) orthorectification to correct for surface elevation; and 3) a novel image matching technique in swath projection to achieve the subpixel resolution. The method is designed for processing daytime data as it intensively employs observations from optical solar bands, the near-infrared channel in particular. The application of the developed processing system showed that the algorithm achieved better than 1/3 FOV geolocation accuracy for AVHRR 1-km scenes. It has very high efficiency rate (> 97%) due to the dense and uniform GCP coverage of the study area (5700 x 4800 km²), covering the entire Canada, the Northern U.S., Alaska, Greenland, and surrounding oceans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a multidisciplinary modeling approach to quickly quantify climate change impacts on energy consumption, peak load, and load composition of residential and commercial buildings. This research focuses on addressing the impact of temperature changes on the building cooling load in ten major cities across the Western United States and Canada. Our results have shown that by the mid-century, building yearly energy consumption and peak load will increase in the Southwest. Moreover, the peak load months will spread out to not only the summer months but also spring and autumn months. The Pacific Northwest will experience more hot days in the summer months. The penetration levels of air-conditioning (a/c) systems in this region are likely to increase significantly over the years. As a result, some locations in the Pacific Northwest may be shifted from winter peaking to summer peaking. Overall, the Western U.S. grid may see more simultaneous peaks across the North and South in summer months. Increased cooling load will result in a significant increase in the motor load, which consumes more reactive power and requires stronger voltage support from the grid. This study suggests an increasing need for the industry to implement new technology to increase the efficiency of temperature-sensitive loads and apply proper protection and control to prevent possible adverse impacts of a/c motor loads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the tests performed by the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) for determining cross-polarization discrimination of some consumer-grade UHF TV antennas that are available on the market. The test conditions were selected to resemble the situation when a UD (Unlicensed Device) transmitting antenna is operational in the vicinity of a TV receiving antenna. The results of this experiment will be helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of cross-polarization discrimination when it is used as a way of mitigating the interference effects from UD radiation onto DTV reception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a research version of the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) mesoglobal weather forecasts model is evaluated by comparing the simulated Special Sensor Microwave/Imager brightness temperatures (Tbs) with the observed ones. Several comparisons based on two 15-day periods, one in winter and one in summer, have been done. Results are compared to those obtained for a study conducted on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) model. The overall performance of the GEM model is similar to that of the 2001 version of the ECMWF model. The model appears to simulate with realism the large-scale rainy systems but with frequent mislocations. Moreover, the model has a tendency to produce intense small-scale precipitating areas that are not observed. The occurrence frequency of cloud and rain is overestimated by the model. Finally, these results are encouraging enough to continue investigating the assimilation of Tbs in cloudy and rainy skies at MSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topographic correction based on sun-canopy-sensor (SCS) geometry is more appropriate than terrain-based corrections in forested areas since SCS preserves the geotropic nature of trees (vertical growth) regardless of terrain, view, and illumination angles. However, in some terrain orientations, SCS experiences an overcorrection problem similar to other simple photometric functions. To address this problem, we propose a new SCS+C correction that accounts for diffuse atmospheric irradiance based on the C-correction. A rigorous, comprehensive, and flexible method for independent validation based on canopy geometric optical reflectance models is also introduced as an improvement over previous validation approaches, and forms a secondary contribution of this paper. Results for a full range of slopes, aspects, and crown closures showed SCS+C provided improved corrections compared to the SCS and four other photometric approaches (cosine, C, Minnaert, statistical-empirical) for a Rocky Mountain forest setting in western Canada. It was concluded that SCS+C should be considered for topographic correction of remote sensing imagery in forested terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of Public Safety (PS) in North America has become more crucial since the Digital Television (DTV) transition allotment plans were developed. Therefore, Canada has designated a modest amount of spectrum in Television broadcast channels 63 and 68 for PS use. As a result of this decision, Co-channel Interference (CCI) and Adjacent-Channel Interference (ACI) resulting from PS operation in channels 63/68 into and from surrounding NTSC or DTV service need to be considered. This paper discusses the impact that (CCI) and (ACI), produced by PS mobile system operation in channel 63/68, has on DTV and NTSC operating in and around channels 63/68. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant banter to improving, the power quality at industrial facilities is the lack of contemporaneous and historical power quality and reliability data. A new Web-enabled near-real-time power quality and reliability monitoring system, termed 1-Grid, has been developed to provide such information on a nationwide basis. The ultralow-cost sensors record power events and send event data via the Internet to the system database servers using an internal modem. Data display, e-mail event notification, site administration, and summary reporting of the data are achieved via a Web browser. In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Electric Power Research Institute, and leading utilities and manufacturers, the deployment of these sensors has begun, with a target deployment of 50 000 monitors across the U.S. and Canada over the next 2-4 years. This paper discusses the implementation of this grid information resource, and discusses data captured by the network since early monitors were deployed in 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the results of Canadian National Power Quality Survey of the voltage sags' frequency at industrial, commercial sites and on utility primary side of their facilities and discuss the implications as to the origins of voltage sags. Industrial customer group; Commercial customer group; Voltage sags incident; Canadian Electric Association (CEA) incidents; Frequency of voltage sags on individual and multiple phases; Conclusions.

Presents a summary of the Canadian Electrical Association's Equipment Reliability Information System, statistics on the forced outage performance characteristics of transmission equipment. Transformer banks; Frequency and duration of all integral subcomponents; Operating mechanisms.

A calendar of global computer science events for April, 2007-October, 2007 is presented. The 23rd IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering will be held in Istanbul, Turkey in April (www.icde2007.org/icde), The 27th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems will be held in Toronto, Canada in June (www.eecg.utoronto.ca/icdcs07), and the 32nd IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks will be held in Dublin, Ireland in October (www.ieeelcn.org).

This article is a case study from the Hebron Offshore Oil Platform located in Atlantic Canada focusing on fire-resistant medium-voltage enclosures that were supplied for the seawater lift pumps and fire water pumps. The purpose of this article is to show where fire-resistant enclosures may be utilized and to detail the testing involved in achieving fire resistance with the enclosures for the Hebron Platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will discuss the requirements for evaluating an equipment assembly for evidence of compliance to applicable standards, for the purpose of obtaining certification or a listing from a certification body. This would allow the equipment to be marked as suitable for use in explosive atmospheres. Historically there was little guidance for evaluating ex equipment assemblies and as such evaluations could be complicated and costly. In 2017, a technical specification, IEC TS 60079-46, was published for the evaluation of equipment assemblies for explosive environments. In 2018, Canada adopted the IEC TS 60079-46 with Canadian deviations, as CAN/CSA C22.2 No. 60079-46. The USA is in the process of adopting a version of IEC TS 60079-46 with national deviations. This is a step forward in being able to approve assemblies so that any additional investigation in the field is minimized or eliminated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Snow water equivalent (SWE) is an important surface parameter for understanding a number of Earth system processes. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has considerable potential for measuring SWE of dry-snow because SAR can penetrate through the snow to the ground surface and is both amplitude- and phase-sensitive to refraction from the snow. Previous work on refraction-based SWE measurement by SAR has utilized the repeat-pass InSAR phase signal to estimate changes in SWE that occur between SAR acquisitions. These are subject to temporal decorrelation effects and consider only the refraction that occurs along the SAR beam center rather than the entire synthetic aperture. This study examines the refractive effect of dry-snow along the synthetic aperture and its impact on SAR image formation including defocusing and phase bias of the system impulse response. Snow phase compensation during time domain processing to recover the snow-free impulse response function (IRF) is described and demonstrated. The feasibility of using the mapdrift and image sharpness autofocus methods to estimate SWE is examined, and the effect of key system parameters on the estimation performance is derived. Experimental validation of the method was conducted by acquiring L-band data with the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Airborne SAR System over a pair of corner reflectors installed on the Kluane icefield in northwestern Canada. Results from both simulations and the icefield experiment are presented and compared including an analysis of errors affecting the estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear reactor inspections are critical to ensure the safety and reliability of a nuclear facility’s operation. In Canada, ultrasonic testing (UT) is used to inspect the health of pressure tubes that are part of Canada’s Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor’s fuel channels. Currently, analysis of UT scans is performed by manual visualization and measurement to locate, characterize, and disposition flaws. Therefore, there is motivation to develop an automated method that is fast and accurate. In this article, a proof of concept (PoC) that automates the detection of flaws in nuclear fuel channel UT scans using a convolutional neural network (CNN) is presented. The CNN model was trained after constructing a dataset using historical UT scans and the corresponding inspection results. The requirement for this prototype was to identify the location of at least a portion of each flaw in UT scans while minimizing false positives (FPs). The proposed CNN model achieves this target by automatically identifying at least a portion of each flaw where further manual analysis is performed to identify the width, the length, and the type of the flaw. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical analysis of meteorological data for icing and ice shedding on overhead power-line conductors was performed. The data studied were recorded during the 57 icing events (1659 h), which occurred in the period between February 1998 and January 2000 at the Mont Bélair icing test site in Quebec, Canada. The analysis aims at establishing shape and statistical parameters of the transfer functions representing the correlations between hourly icing rate and the variations of the following meteorological variables: ambient temperature, hourly number of ice-rate meter signals, wind speed and direction, and freezing precipitation rate. Two different regimes of the ice formation process, in-cloud icing, and freezing precipitation icing, are considered for characterizing ice events. The set of fitting regression curves obtained is the statistical base for creating an empirical probabilistic icing, and ice shedding model for studying and forecasting atmospheric-icing loads on overhead power-line conductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is shown that the hourly ambient temperature and load of a substation transformer in Manitoba, observed over the three-month winter or summer time window, are governed by the normal distribution, respectively, and they jointly follow the bivariate normal distribution. Based on this, a rigorous model for the peak-load ambient temperature (i.e., the ambient temperature at the time when the winter or summer peak-load of the transformer occurs) is developed. This makes it possible to accurately determine the peak load capability of the transformer if its historical hourly ambient temperature and load data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulates the theoretical behavior of the seasonal changes in backscattering signal in northern Quebec. Overview of the dielectric constant values of black spruce tree components used to run the forest canopy model for different seasons; Signal of wet and dry snow over open areas; Effects of the wet snow surface roughness.

Presents the results of an analysis of a February 21, 1994, geoelectromagnetic disturbance in the Hydro-Quebec power system in western Quebec that produced one of the largest electric fields ever recorded. Magnetic field and electric field measurements; Model of the electrojet.

It is commonly believed that observer-based compensation is an effective way for disturbance rejection. A less talked about fact is that such disturbance rejection control technique may also degrade control performance. In this article, we present a typical cross-coupling system to reveal this problem and, more importantly, propose a new design principle of conditional disturbance negation (CDN) to eliminate its potential drawbacks of disturbance observer-based compensation. Qualitative analysis is first given for a general form of such cross-coupling systems, indicating the necessity of CDN. The analysis and control design principle of CDN is then exemplified through two applications. A numerical linear application produces abundant quantitative results through the powerful transfer function and frequency domain tools. A more complex nonlinear flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicle application shows how conventional compensation deteriorates the couplings between rigid and flexible modes, and validates the effectiveness of CDN through comprehensive model analysis and simulation results. The proposed CDN design principle also arouses awareness of the importance of: 1) understanding the characteristics of the plant to be controlled and 2) recognizing the critical role the information plays in engineering practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty modeling of renewable energy sources, load demand, electricity price, etc. create a high volume of data in smart grids. Accordingly, in this article, a precise forecasting method based on a deep learning concept with microclustering (MC) task is presented. The MC method is structured based on hybrid unsupervised and supervised clustering tasks by K-means and Gaussian support vector machine, respectively. In the proposed method, the input data sequence is clustered by the MC task, and then the forecasting process is employed. By applying the MC, input data in each hour are categorized into different groups, and a distinctive forecasting unit is allocated to each one. In this way, more clusters and forecasting networks are earmarked for the hours with higher fluctuation rates. The bi-directional long short-term memory (B-LSTM), which is one of the newest recurrent artificial neural networks, is proposed as the forecasting unit. The B-LSTM has bidirectional memory—feedforward and feedback loops—that helps us to investigate both previous and future hidden layers data. The optimal number of clusters in each hour is determined based on the Davies–Bouldin index. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, in this study, three forecasting tasks including the wind speed, load demand, and electricity price are studied in different periods using the Ontario province, Canada, data set. The results are compared with other benchmarking methods to verify the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method. In fact, the proposed method, which is equipped with the MC technique and B-LSTM networks, significantly promotes the forecasting results, especially in spike points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the occurrence of a flashover of a fiberglass reinforced plastic hot stick during live line work at the Manitoba Hydro in October 1997. Accident sequence; Examination of hot stick, tower and conductor; System conditions; Weather conditions; Factors which may have contributed to the flashover; Surface contaminants; Collection of surface moisture.

Provides information on a study which presented a probabilistic Monte Carlo simulation model for determining generation equivalence to a transmission facility for use in transmission system planning studies in the electric power industry. Information on the supply network of the Alberta Power System; Local area reliability assessment methodology; Input data and assumptions used to assess the reliability improvements; Results and conclusions.

Presents a study of lightning strikes at the Toronto Canadian National Tower for the period of 1978 to 1995. Statistical information on lightning strikes; Analysis of video recordings of CN Tower lightning events; Data provided in study; Comparison of data for CN Tower lightning strikes; Indepth look at study.

The 20th IEEE International Symposium on Applications of Ferroelectrics (ISAF) was held on July 24-27, 2011, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, jointly with the International Symposium on Piezoresponse Force Microscopy and Nanoscale Phenomena in Polar Materials (PFM). Over a period of four days, approximately 400 scientists, engineers, and students from around the world presented their work and discussed the latest developments in the field of ferroelectrics, related materials, and their applications. It is particularly encouraging to see that a large number of students (115) were attracted to the joint conference and presented high-quality research works. This trend is not only important to this conference series, but more importantly, it is vital to the future of the ferroelectrics field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the transmission line grounding system design, spatial and temporal/seasonal variations of tower footing impedance should be considered. However, in real life, only spatial variations are taken into account at the design stage, seasonal variations have not been included. In this article, seasonal variations of tower footing impedance of several types of transmission line grounding systems at Manitoba Hydro, Canada, are investigated through field measurements for a whole year. The industrial practice uses simulated tower footing impedances by the software current distribution, electromagnetic interference, grounding and soil structure analysis (CDEGS) in the design of transmission line grounding systems, however, the accuracy of simulated tower footing impedances as a critical design parameter has never been evaluated. In this article, this industrial practice is evaluated by comparing simulated and measured tower footing impedances for various transmission line grounding systems. The importance to use proper tower footing impedance for lightning conditions is also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, an unsupervised clustering-based method for identifying rain-contaminated and low-backscatter regions in X-band marine radar images is presented. Rain blurs the wave signatures of radar images, and low-backscatter images caused by calibration errors or too-low wind speed contain little or no wave signatures. In both cases, ocean surface parameter measurement using X-band marine radar will be negatively affected. Four types of features can be extracted based on the distinct difference in texture and pixel intensity distribution between rain-free, rain-contaminated, and low-backscatter regions. Features extracted from each pixel are combined into a feature vector and mapped onto a $10\times 10$ -neuron self-organizing map (SOM). Then, the hierarchical agglomerative clustering algorithm is introduced, which clustered those neurons into three types (i.e., rain-free, rain-contaminated, and low-backscatter). The method is validated using the shipborne marine radar data collected on the East Coast of Canada. The good agreement between the pixel-based clustering results and manually segmented reference images indicates that both rain-contaminated and low-backscatter regions can be identified effectively using the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]