1,720,978 research outputs found
Tighter Approximated MILP Formulations for Unit Commitment Problems
Full text linkThe short-term Unit Commitment (UC) problem in hydro-thermal power generation is a large-scale, Mixed-Integer NonLinear Program (MINLP), which is difficult to solve efficiently, especially for large-scale instances. It is possible to approximate the nonlinear objective function of the problem by means of piecewise-linear functions, so that UC can be approximated by a Mixed-Integer Linear Program (MILP); applying the available efficient general-purpose MILP solvers to the resulting formulations, good quality solutions can be obtained in a relatively short amount of time. We build on this approach, presenting a novel way to approximating the nonlinear objective function based on a recently developed class of valid inequalities for the problem, called "Perspective Cuts". At least for many realistic instances of a general basic formulation of UC, a MILP-based heuristic obtains comparable or slightly better solutions in less time when employing the new approach rather than the standard piecewise linearizations, while being not more difficult to implement and use. Furthermore, "dynamic" formulations, whereby the approximation is iteratively improved, provide even better results if the approximation is appropriately controlled
Solving Unit Commitment Problems with General Ramp Contraints
Full text linkLagrangian Relaxation (LR) algorithms are among the most successful approaches for solving large-scale hydro-thermal Unit Commitment (UC) problems; this is largely due to the fact that the Single-Unit Commitment (1UC) problems resulting from the decomposition, incorporating many kinds of technical constraints such as minimum up- and down-time requirements and time-dependent startup costs, can be efficiently solved by Dynamic Programming (DP) techniques. Ramp constraints have historically eluded efficient exact DP approaches; however, this has recently changed [A16]. We show that the newly proposed DP algorithm for ramp-constrained (1UC) problems allows to extend existing LR approaches to ramp-constrained (UC); this is not obvious since the heuristic procedures typically used to recover a primal feasible solution are not easily extended to take ramp limits into account. However, dealing with ramp constraints in the subproblems turns out to be sufficient to provide the LR heuristic enough guidance to produce good feasible solutions even with no other modification of the approach; this is due to the fact that (sophisticated) LR algorithms to (UC) duly exploit the primal information computed by the Lagrangian Dual, which in the proposed approach is ramp feasible. We also show by computational experiments that the LR is competitive with those based on general-purpose Mixed-Integer Program (MIP) solvers for large-scale instances, especially hydro-thermal ones
New Lagrangian Heuristics for Ramp-Constrained Unit Commitment Problems
No full textLagrangian Relaxation (LR) algorithms are among the most successful approaches for solving large-scale hydro-thermal Unit Commitment (UC) problems; this is largely due to the fact that the Single-Unit Commitment (1UC) problems resulting from the decomposition can be efficiently solved by Dynamic Programming (DP) techniques. Ramp constraints have historically eluded efficient exact DP approaches; however, this has recently changed [A16]. We show that the newly proposed DP algorithm for ramp-constrained (1UC) problems, together with a new heuristic phase that explicitly takes into account ramp limits on the maximum and minimum available power at each hour, can reliably find good-quality solutions to even large-scale (UC) instances in short time
Price Scenarios in the Regional South-East Europe Electricity Market and Cost-Benefit Assessment of a Physical Interconnection with Italy
No full textLagrangian Heuristics Based on Disaggregated Bundle Methods for Hydrothermal Unit Commitment
No full textThe paper presents a simple and effective Lagrangian relaxation approach for the solution of the optimal short-term unit commitment problem in hydrothermal power-generation systems. The proposed approach, based on a disaggregated Bundle method for the solution of the dual problem, with a new warm-starting procedure, achieves accurate solutions in few iterations. The adoption of a disaggregated Bundle method not only improves the convergence of the proposed approach but also provides information that are suitably exploited for generating a feasible solution of the primal problem and for obtaining an optimal hydro scheduling. A comparison between the proposed Lagrangian approach and other ones, based on subgradient and Bundle methods, is presented for a simple yet reasonable formulation of the Hydrothermal Unit Commitment problem
Sequential Lagrangian-MILP Approaches for Unit Commitment Problems
No full textThe short-term Unit Commitment (UC) problem in hydro-thermal power generation is a fundamental problem in short-term electrical generation scheduling. Historically, Lagrangian techniques have been used to tackle this large-scale, difficult Mixed-Integer NonLinear Program (MINLP); this requires being able to efficiently solve the Lagrangian subproblems, which has only recently become possible (efficiently enough) for units subject to significant ramp constraints. In the last years, alternative approaches have been devised where the nonlinearities in the problem are approximated by means of piecewise-linear functions, so that UC can be approximated by a Mixed-Integer Linear Program (MILP); in particular, using a recently developed class of valid inequalities for the problem, called "Perspective Cuts", significant improvements have been obtained in the efficiency and effectiveness of the solution algorithms. These two different approaches have complementary strengths; Lagrangian ones provide very good lower bounds quickly, but they require sophisticated heuristics—which may need to be changed every time that the mathematical model changes—for producing actual feasible solutions. MILP approaches have been shown to be able to provide very good feasible solutions quickly, but their lower bound is significantly worse. We present a sequential approach which combines the two methods, trying to exploit each one's strengths; we show, by means of extensive computational experiments on realistic instances, that the sequential approach may exhibit significantly better efficiency than either of the two basic ones, depending on the degree of accuracy requested to the feasible solutions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
- …
