Performance Comparison of Swastika and Rectangular Shaped Microstrip Patch Antenna

In this paper, Microstrip patch antennas with rectangular and swastika shape of patch are designed and its performance parameters are compared with each other. Rectangular and Swastika shaped patch are considered in this paper with common rectangular ground plane. The antenna is simulated at 2.4 GHz using HFSS simulation software. This work mainly includes modification of antenna patch to improve the antenna parameters. The parameters of antenna such as Return loss, VSWR Bandwidth and radiation pattern are compared using simulation. The performance of Swastika shaped antenna was found to be better than rectangular shaped microstrip patch antenna with improved Return Loss, VSWR, Bandwidth and Radiation Pattern.

Short Term Electric Load Forecasting of Kathmandu Valley of Nepal using Artificial Neural Network

Decision making in the energy sector has to be based on accurate forecasts of the load demand. Short-term forecasting, which forms the focus of this paper, gives a day ahead hourly forecast of electric load. This forecast can help to make important decisions in the field of scheduling, contingency analysis, load flow analysis, preventing imbalance in the power generation and load demand, load switching strategies, thus leading to greater network reliability and power quality. A method called Artificial Neural Network is used to anticipate the future load of Kathmandu Valley of Nepal. The Neural Network is build, trained with historical data along with seven different input variables and used for prediction of day ahead 24 hours load. The output is validated with the real Load collected from NEA. In addition, forecasting is performed by some other time series methods as well, and whose output are compared with that of neural network. The range of Mean Absolute Deviation for four different time series models lied between 1.50-2.59. When the errors were calculated in terms of MSE and MAPE the range of these values were found to be in between 2.59-7.78, and 1.61- 5.07 respectively. The Artificial Neural Network proved to be the more accurate forecast method when the results are compared in terms of error measurements with a MAD having 1.23, MSE having 1.79 and MAPE having 1.17. The Neural Network proved to be more accurate method comparatively with satisfactory minimum error.

Human Resource Development Practices: Empirical Evidence from Nepal Rastra Bank

Human resource development (HRD) is the process of increasing knowledge, skills and capacities of employees. It is concerned with preparing employee to work effectively and efficiently in the organization. It is a complementary approach to other development strategies, particularly employment and reduction of inequalities. It also considers HRD as synonymous with human development, which encompasses education, training, health, nutrition, and fertility reduction. It ensures that organizations have adequate human resources with capabilities needed for achieving goals. This article has tried to explore the practices and relation between HRD and performance of Nepal Rastra Bank.

Performance Analysis of Non Burn Cooking Device Using Commercial Grade Quicklime as Heating Fuel

The need for portability and easy to handle devices has been felt by the trekkers and campers. In a country like Nepal, with tough geographical terrain and changing climates, a non burn cooking alternative is sought for outdoor cooking. Quicklime or Calcium Oxide (CaO) is commercially available in abundance. CaO releases 64 kJ of heat during slaking at Normal temperature and Pressure. Boiling of water, preparing tea, boiling egg, preparing omelet and preparing instant noodles were tested with an average of 32.7 % deviation from theoretical values without considering the manufacturing specification of 90 % purity. Calculating with the manufacturing specification, the error reduced to 27.3 %. Though cooking is correlated to the subjective preference of individuals, the highest cooking temperature was recorded 86.5 °C (boiling water), and the highest temperature of inner pot reached was 121.1 °C in that case. The highest temperature reached in each of cooking purposes were respectively as; boiling egg on water(75.6 °C), boiling egg without using water (11.2 °C), preparing tea(85.9 °C) and preparing instant noodles (68.3 °C). The quantity of cooing material resulted in higher efficiencies as evident by the factor that minimum deviation from theoretical calculation was seen during the cooking of noodles (17.5 %) and the maximum deviation was observed during preparation of boiled egg without using water or secondary pot (58.5 %). The device was not found financially feasible for household cooking and for cases where transportation cost incurred is high; the device was financially feasible (Rs. 14 as compared to above Rs. 400 and Rs. 250 of LPG based and kerosene based cooking respectively).

The Hydrogen Passivated Graphene Cluster and its Stability - First Principle DFT (B3LYP) Levels of Approximation with the Basis Set 3-21G

First-principles DFT (B3LYP) levels of calculations with the basis set 3-21G have been carried out in order to study the geometric stability and electronic properties of hydrogen passivated graphene (H-graphene) clusters(CN) (where N = 6, 10, 13, 16, 22, 24, 27, 30, 35, 37, 40, 42, 45, 47, 48, 50, 52, 54, 70 and 96) and perform the DOS spectrum on H-graphene (C16H10, C24H12, C30H14, C48H18, C70H22 and C96H24) using Mulliken population analysis by the Gaussian 03 W set of programs. The variations of ground state energy of graphene clusters are observed on sizes and corresponding number of carbon atoms. The binding energy per carbon atom is the function of carbon atoms for the number of carbon atoms less than 30 and saturated at carbon’s number 30 and more in the DFT (B3LYP) levels of approximation with the basis set 3-21G. The binding energy per carbon atom of a pure graphene sheet C32 is 8.03 eV/atom in the DFT (B3LYP) level of approximation with the choice of the basis set 3-21G, which is acceptable with previous reported data 7.91 eV/atom. The HOMO-LUMO gap in NBO is studied for some H-grapheneclustors C16H10, C24H12, C30H14, C48H18, C70H22 and C96H24.

A New Approach to the design of DC Powered Induction Cooker

About 80 % of total energy consumption in Nepal is being consumed in the residential sector and about 60 % of total residential energy application includes cooking application. At present, in urban area, there is heavy dependence on liquefied petroleum gas for cooking purpose whereas in rural area, there is heavy dependence on biomass. Clearly, there is a need to switch towards clean and efficient fuel: electricity. Load shedding problem has been a reason preventing Nepalese people to switch towards electricity based cooking. Even though at present (2017), Nepal Electricity Authority’s has been able to reduce load shedding for residential consumers, there is still a condition of inadequate supply of electricity if all of the consumers will switch towards electricity for cooking purpose. The experimental and simulation efficiency of conventional AC based induction cooker has been found to be 85.56 % and 87 % respectively. DC powered induction cooker has been designed and simulated. The simulation efficiency of which has been measured to be 90.10 %. The hardware realization of the design is malfunctioning in real time testing making a need of power electronic component with the capacity to pass very high current, as high as 80 A at low voltage, as low as 12 V.

Travel Time Estimation for Pedestrian with GPS Cell Phones as Probes

This paper estimates the travel time for pedestrian in Kist Medical Hospital- Balkumari route using cell phones’ GPS as probes. Using Google Map’s individual timeline, GPS data was traced for this route. Then, Kalman Filter Algorithm is used to estimate the travel time for pedestrian for that week day. Using algorithm result, statistical tool is used to measure the accuracy of travel time in particular origin-destination pair. Kalman filter algorithm is better approach for travel time estimation since the parameters get updated quickly if there is traffic fluctuation. Based on mean travel time, Kalman filter has better travel time estimation of 16.6 min with the help of historical data in compared to Google Map estimation of 18 min irrespective time of day in above origin-destination pair. Real observation is close to estimated travel time which signifies estimated travel time. Here author manages to compare the mean travel time between Kalman filter estimation and Google map data estimation.

Improvement of performance of short term electricity demand model with meteorological parameters

The accuracy of short term electricity demand forecasting is essential for operation and trading activities on energy market. This paper considers a parsimonious forecasting model to explain the importance of sophisticated weather parameters for hourly electricity demand forecasting. Temperature is the major factor that directly influence electricity demand, but what about the affect of other weather factors such as relative humidity, wind speed etc. on short term electricity demand forecasting, is the prime research question and this paper analyzed it quantitatively. We demonstrate three different multiple linear models including auto-regressive moving average ARMA (2,6) models with and without some exogenous weather variables to compare with performance for Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Since, Bayesian approach is used to estimate the weight of each variables with Gibbs sampling, it generates the weight of coefficients in terms of distribution as our interest. The performance of each models for complete one year out sample prediction shows that the average improvement of hourly forecast by 1 to 2 % can be achieve by including such weather factors.

Use of Genetic Algorithm on Optimal Power Flow: An Illustration of Transmission Line Loss Minimization

This paper presents the usefulness and effectiveness of Genetic Algorithm on solving Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem formulation of a real world power system. Optimization is a broad concept that is generally directly or indirectly related to cost factor. In this case, transmission lines loss minimization is presented as the objective of optimization problem formulation keeping all other technical factors and parameters under operating constraints. Results of this study, presented in the Integrated Nepal Power System (INPS) transmission line network show that the Genetic Algorithm is effective method to optimize the power flow via assigned objective of transmission loss minimization in much quicker and effective way when compared to conventional Newton-Rapshon method.

Modeling and Simulation of 115.2 kWp Grid-Connected Solar PV System using PVSYST

The renewable sources such as solar, wind, biomass, etc. are often used for electricity generation for their availability, no green-house gas emission and solar photovoltaic is major among them. Many On-Grid PV systems are being installed around the globe nowadays to reduce electricity dependency on a single source and thus enhance availability of energy sources. Kathmandu, Nepal receives sufficient sunshine with insolation around 4.5 to 5 kWh/m2/day, which justifies essence of grid-connected solar PV installations. A 115.2 kWp solar plant has been installed at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), Maharajgunj, Kathmandu to fulfill its own load demands and reduce the electricity bill of the building. The generated energy is not fed to the grid currently. The detailed On-Grid solar PV system is modeled, and performance parameters such as Performance Ratio, Specific Yield and Capacity Utilization Factor as defined by International Electro technical Commission are estimated using simulation techniques from PVSYST. The actual generation of the existing system within one year of installation is measured to be 35 MWh but simulation tool suggests that total 199 MWh can be generated using similar capacity panel, with system being totally on-grid type. Using PVSYST, the performance parameters are found to be performance ratio 83.5 % and Specific Yield 1728 kWh/kWp respectively. Thus, this paper intends to calculate performance parameters of existing system as well as performance of identical sized, totally on-grid system, simulated using PVSYST.