Abstract
Recently, demand response programmes (DRPs) have captured great attention in electric power systems. DRPs such as time-of-use (ToU) programme can be efficiently employed in the power system planning to reform the long-term behaviour of the load demands. The composite generation expansion planning (GEP) and transmission expansion planning (TEP) known as composite GEP–TEP is of high significance in power systems to meet the future load demand of the system and also integrate renewable energy sources (RESs). In this regard, this study presents a dynamic optimisation framework for the composite GEP–TEP problem taking into consideration the ToU programme and also, the incentive-based and supportive programmes. Accordingly, the performances of the capacity payment and feed-in tariff mechanisms and the ToU programme in integrating RESs and reducing the total cost have been evaluated in this study. The problem has been formulated and solved as a standard two-stage mixed-integer linear programming model aimed at minimising the total costs. In this model, the ToU programme is applied and the results are fed into the expansion planning problem as the input. The proposed framework is simulated on the IEEE Reliability Test System to verify the effectiveness of the model and discuss the results obtained from implementing the mentioned mechanisms to support the RESs integration.

Abstract
The domain of Production Planning and Control, or in a broader sence Production Management has been deserving a special and increasing attention by the companies, which intend to continuously achieve better results through continuous improvement, which also fits in the context of Industry 4.0. Companies tend to implement management systems with the purpose of achieving greater competitiveness and, consequently, greater sustainability in their sector. The selection of the appropriate production management system is a serious problem for the companies. The main objective of this study is to support companies in the correct choice of a Decision Support System. The method used to achieve the proposed objective consists on formulating a model for comparing functionalities and specifications, where selection of criteria were also defined and analyzed. Based on a large Company scenario, the model is applied to three production execution systems: SAP PP (Systems Applications and Products - Production Planning), Prodsmart and GenSYS. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.

Abstract
Social networks have an evolving characteristic due to the continuous interaction between users, with nodes associating and disassociating with each other as time flies. The analysis of such networks is especially challenging, because it needs to be performed with an online approach, under the one-pass constraint of data streams. Such evolving behavior leads to changes in the network topology that can be investigated under different perspectives. In this work we focus on the analysis of nodes position evolution—a node-centric perspective. Our goal is to spot change-points in an evolving network at which a node deviates from its normal behavior. Therefore, we propose a change detection model for processing evolving network streams which employs three different aggregating mechanisms for tracking the evolution of centrality metrics of a node. Our model is space and time efficient with memory less mechanisms and in other mechanisms at most we require the network of current time step T only. Additionally, we also compare the influence on different centralities’ fluctuations by the dynamics of real-world preferences. Consecutively, we apply our model in the user preference change detection task, reaching competitive levels of accuracy on Twitter network. © 2019, Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature.

Abstract

Abstract
In this study, a non-probabilistic program is proposed to a trading framework for demand response (DR) aggregators. Both sides of the aggregator, including upper side and down side of this entity, have been taken into account. In the down-side of the aggregator, two popular programs are considered such as reward-based program and time-of-use (TOU) program, where DR is obtained from these resources. The acquired DR is being sold to the purchasers in the other side of the aggregator through DR options and fixed DR contracts. To the aim of increasing the desired target profit of risk-seeker aggregator, an opportunity function of information-gap decision theory (IGDT) is used to handle the uncertainty, which is solved in General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) software. This model is implemented in a realistic case study.

Abstract
The fabrication of optical waveguides with femtosecond laser direct writing is reported in two materials, Suprasil1 and Eagle2000. The influence of typical fabrication parameters, such as pulse energy and scan velocity, on the waveguide's spectral characteristics is explored from 500 to 1700 nm. Tests conducted in Suprasil1 evidence a strong presence of Rayleigh scattering, hindering the production of low-loss waveguides at short wavelengths. On the other hand, optical waveguides fabricated in Eagle2000 exhibited lower insertion losses at short wavelengths, enabling the fabrication of low-loss broadband optical waveguides with a two order of magnitude higher scan velocity when compared with Suprasil1.