Reliable access to electricity is still a challenge in many developing countries. Indeed, rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa and developing countries such as India still encounter frequent power outages. Local energy markets (LEMs) have emerged as a low-cost solution enabling prosumers with power supply systems such as solar PV to sell their surplus of energy to other members of the local community. This paper proposes a one-to-one automated negotiation framework for peer-to-peer (P2P) local trading of electricity. Our framework uses an autonomous agent model to capture the preferences of both an electricity seller (consumer) and buyer (small local generator or prosumer), in terms of price and electricity quantities to be traded in different periods throughout a day. We develop a bilateral negotiation framework based on the well-known Rubinstein alternating offers protocol, in which the quantity of electricity and the price for different periods are aggregated into daily packages and negotiated between the buyer and seller agent. The framework is then implemented experimentally, with buyers and sellers adopting different negotiation strategies based on negotiation concession algorithms, such as linear heuristic or Boulware. Results show that this framework and agents modelling allow prosumers to increase their revenue while providing electricity access to the community at low cost.
Encryption systems have been developed for image viewing applications using the Hill Cipher algorithm. This study aims to evaluate the image encryption quality of the Hill Cipher algorithm. Several traditional metrics are used to evaluate the quality of the encryption scheme. Three of such metrics have been selected for this study. These include, the Colour Histogram, the Maximum Deviation (comparing the original image) and the Entropy Analysis of the encrypted image. Encryption quality results from all three schemes using a variety of images show that a plain Hill Cipher approach gives a good result for all kinds of images but is more suited for colour dense images.
Cloud computing is a standard that is fast gaining momentum in the IT world. The availability of storage capacity that can be accessed and increased as the need arises makes computing easier. Applications can also be deployed using services provided by a cloud service provider. Portability allows utilization of applications and services across various domains. Portability could be in the area of programming language, application programming interface, data storage or data migration. Clearly, the easier it is to move services across various providers, the more attractive cloud computing becomes. The study was executed by means of review of some literature available on cloud application portability. This chapter examines current trends in cloud application portability area and gives focus for future research. In the present work, the objective is to answer the following question: what is the current trend and development in cloud application portability? Papers published in journals, conferences, white papers, and reputable magazines were analyzed. Some core topic facets were used in this review for the identification of trends in cloud application portability. The finding is that discussions on virtualization and API-specific issues are not adequate. This will be of benefit to prospective cloud users and even cloud providers.
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