Analysis of Cost-Optimal Renewable Energy Expansion for the Near-Term Jordanian Electricity System

Jordan is affected by an ever changing environment in the midst of climate change, political challenges, a fast growing economy and socio-economic pressures. Among other countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa, Jordan is facing a number of electricity related challenges, such as a rising energy demand, high dependency on fossil fuel imports and management of local, fossil and renewable resources. The paper presents an analysis based on an open source optimisation modelling approach identifying a cost-optimal extension of the Jordanian electricity system with growing demand projections until 2030 utilising pumped hydro energy storage and determining the costs of different CO2 mitigation pathways. The results highlight the large potential of renewable energy for the cost effective, environmentally friendly and energy independent development of the Jordanian electricity sector. A share of up to 50% renewable energy can be achieved with only a minor increase in levelised cost of electricity from 54.42 to 57.04 $/MWh. In particular, a combination of photovoltaic and pumped hydro storage proved to be a superior solution compared to the expansion of existing shale oil deployments due to high costs and CO2 emissions. Aiming for a more than 50% renewable energy share within the electricity mix calls for substantial wind energy deployments. In a system with a renewable energy share of 90%, wind energy covers 45% of the demand.

ON THE OPTIMAL EXTENSION THEOREM AND A QUESTION OF OHSAWA

In this paper, we present a version of Guan-Zhou’s optimal $L^{2}$ extension theorem and its application. As a main application, we show that under a natural condition, the question posed by Ohsawa in his series paper VIII on the extension of $L^{2}$ holomorphic functions holds. We also give an explicit counterexample which shows that the question fails in general.

A 4th-Order Optimal Extension of Ostrowski’s Method for Multiple Zeros of Univariate Nonlinear Functions

We present a new optimal class of Ostrowski’s method for obtaining multiple zeros of univariate nonlinear functions. Several researchers tried to construct an optimal family of Ostrowski’s method for multiple zeros, but they did not have success in this direction. The new strategy adopts a weight function approach. The design structure of new families of Ostrowski’s technique is simpler than the existing classical families of the same order for multiple zeros. The classical Ostrowski’s method of fourth-order can obtain a particular form for the simple root. Their efficiency is checked on a good number of relevant numerical examples. These results demonstrate the performance of our methods. We find that the new methods are just as competent as other existing robust techniques available in the literature.

A Design Rule to Reduce the Human Body Effect on Wearable PIFA Antennas

The robustness of wearable Ultra-High Frequency (UHF)-band planar inverted-F Antennas (PIFAs) with respect to coupling with the human body is an extremely difficult challenge for the designer. In this work a design strategy is presented to help the designer to adequately shape and extend the antenna ground plane, which has been derived by accurately analyzing the distribution of the electric and magnetic energy densities of the antenna in a region around the antenna borders. The optimal extension of the ground plane will be discussed for three different grounded antennas, both in terms of free space wavelength, and in terms of electric energy density magnitude. Following these rules, the antenna robustness with respect to the coupling with the human body can be significantly improved, but with a minimal impact on the antenna size. The antenna robustness has been successfully tested considering several models for the human phantom in the simulation environment. The numerical simulations, performed using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Microwave Studio, have been confirmed by experimental data measured for one of the analyzed grounded antenna configurations.

The Effect of Single Mismatches on Primer Extension

BACKGROUND Allele-specific PCR is an important diagnostic tool that identifies single-nucleotide variants by preferential amplification of a particular allele, using primers that are mismatched to all but one allele variant. METHODS We applied a fluorescent stopped-flow polymerase assay to measure extension rates from oligonucleotide hairpins to simulate primer–template pairs. Under PCR-applicable conditions, reaction rates were recorded in nucleotides per second per polymerase (nt/s/poly). The effects of temperature, potassium chloride, mismatch type, and position were studied with primarily a deletion mutant of Thermus aquaticus (Taq) DNA polymerase and 135 oligonucleotide sequences. RESULTS Rates at 65 °C were between 205 ± 11 and 177 ± 8 nt/s/poly for matched templates and between 4.55 ± 0.21 and 0.008 ± 0.005 nt/s/poly for 3′-mismatched templates. Although extension rates progressively increased with mismatches further away from the 3′ end, rates were still reduced by as much as 84% with a C · C mismatch 6 bases from the 3′ end. The optimal extension temperature for matched sequences was 70 °C, shifting to 55–60 °C for 3′ mismatches. KCl inhibited mismatch extension. The Michaelis constant (Km) was increased and the apparent unimolecular rate constant (kcat) decreased for 3′ mismatches relative to matched templates. CONCLUSIONS Although primer extension of mismatches depends on mismatch type and position, variation also depends on local sequence, KCl concentration, and the type of polymerase. Introduction of 3′ mismatches reduces the optimal temperature for extension, suggesting higher annealing temperatures for better allele discrimination. Quantitative descriptions of expected specificity in allele-specific PCR provide additional design direction and suggest when other methods (e.g., high-resolution melting analysis) may be a better choice.