A Contemplation on Electricity Meters In-Service Surveillance Assisted by Remote Error Monitoring

In this paper, remote error monitoring techniques for electricity meters are overviewed suggesting their utilization for in-service surveillance assistance. It is discussed that in-service error observation could provide valuable input, contributing to the timely detection of batches of meters reaching nonconformance status. The payback period analysis of the deployment of a remote error monitoring solution is considered. However, it is pointed out that such an analysis lacks input information describing the relationship between the remote monitoring system’s performance and its ability to detect nonconformance of the batch. It is also noticed that there is no published methodology for grading the status of an entire batch of meters referring to error estimates of a subset of the meters, when the uncertainty of estimation is rather high.

Collaborative Smartphone-Based User Positioning in a Multiple-User Context Using Wireless Technologies

For the localization of multiple users, Bluetooth data from the smartphone is able to complement Wi-Fi-based methods with additional information, by providing an approximation of the relative distances between users. In practice, both positions provided by Wi-Fi data and relative distance provided by Bluetooth data are subject to a certain degree of noise due to the uncertainty of radio propagation in complex indoor environments. In this study, we propose and evaluate two approaches, namely Non-temporal and Temporal ones, of collaborative positioning to combine these two cohabiting technologies to improve the tracking performance. In the Non-temporal approach, our model establishes an error observation function in a specific interval of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi output. It is then able to reduce the positioning error by looking for ways to minimize the error function. The Temporal approach employs an extended error model that takes into account the time component between users’ movements. For performance evaluation, several multi-user scenarios in an indoor environment are set up. Results show that for certain scenarios, the proposed approaches attain over 40% of improvement in terms of average accuracy.

How Monitoring Other’s Actions Influences One’s Own Performance

Monitoring of one’s own and other’s performance during social interactions is crucial to efficiently adapt our behavior and to optimize task performance. In the present study we investigated to what extent social factors can modulate behavioral adjustments in performance. For this purpose, participants executed a flanker task and alternated either with a computer program or with a human partner in cooperative and competitive contexts. Modulations in reaction times (RTs) (post-error slowing) and error rates (post-error accuracy) after error observation were analyzed. The results revealed that these behavioral measures were differently affected by the social manipulations. Post-error slowing was modulated by the social context (cooperation vs. competition), while post-error accuracy was sensitive to the nature of the agent involved in the interaction (human vs. computer). The present findings provide evidence that behavioral adaptations in RTs and accuracy following error observation dissociate and are sensitive to different features of the social situation.

Assimilation of Surface Pressure Observations Using an Ensemble Filter in an Idealized Global Atmospheric Prediction System

An ensemble filter data assimilation system is tested in a perfect model setting using a low resolution Held–Suarez configuration of an atmospheric GCM. The assimilation system is able to reconstruct details of the model’s state at all levels when only observations of surface pressure (PS) are available. The impacts of varying the spatial density and temporal frequency of PS observations are examined. The error of the ensemble mean assimilation prior estimate appears to saturate at some point as the number of PS observations available once every 24 h is increased. However, increasing the frequency with which PS observations are available from a fixed network of 1800 randomly located stations results in an apparently unbounded decrease in the assimilation’s prior error for both PS and all other model state variables. The error reduces smoothly as a function of observation frequency except for a band with observation periods around 4 h. Assimilated states are found to display enhanced amplitude high-frequency gravity wave oscillations when observations are taken once every few hours, and this adversely impacts the assimilation quality. Assimilations of only surface temperature and only surface wind components are also examined. The results indicate that, in a perfect model context, ensemble filters are able to extract surprising amounts of information from observations of only a small portion of a model’s spatial domain. This suggests that most of the remaining challenges for ensemble filter assimilation are confined to problems such as model error, observation representativeness error, and unknown instrument error characteristics that are outside the scope of perfect model experiments. While it is dangerous to extrapolate from these simple experiments to operational atmospheric assimilation, the results also suggest that exploring the frequency with which observations are used for assimilation may lead to significant enhancements to assimilated state estimates.