Abstract
The offset tracking technique based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image intensity information can estimate glacier displacement even when glacier velocities are high and the time interval between images is long, allowing for the broad use of this technique in glacier velocity monitoring. Terrestrial laser scanners, a non-contact measuring system, can measure the velocity of a glacier even if there are no control points arranged on a glacier. In this study, six COSMO-SkyMed images acquired between 31 July and 22 December 2016 were used to obtain the glacial movements of five glaciers on the northern slope of the central Himalayas using the offset tracking approach. During the period of image acquirement, a terrestrial laser scanner was used, and point clouds of two periods in a small area at the terminus of the Pingcuoliesa Glacier were obtained. By selecting three fixed areas of the point clouds that have similar shapes across two periods, the displacements of the centers of gravity of the selected areas were calculated by using contrast analyses of feature points. Although the overall low-density point clouds data indicate that the glacial surfaces have low albedos relative to the wavelength of the terrestrial laser scanner and the effect of its application is therefore influenced in this research, the registration accuracy of 0.0023 m/d in the non-glacial areas of the scanner's measurements is acceptable, considering the magnitude of 0.072 m/d of the minimum glacial velocity measured by the scanner. The displacements from the point clouds broadly agree with the results of the offset tracking technique in the same area, which provides further evidence of the reliability of the measurements of the SAR data in addition to the analyses of the root mean squared error of the velocity residuals in non-glacial areas. The analysis of the movement of five glaciers in the study area revealed the dynamic behavior of these glacial surfaces across five periods. G089972E28213N Glacier, Pingcuoliesa Glacier and Shimo Glacier show increasing surface movement velocities from the terminus end to the upper part with elevations of 1500 m, 4500 m, and 6400 m, respectively. The maximum velocities on the glacial surface profiles were 31.69 cm/d, 62.40 cm/d, and 42.00 cm/d, respectively. In contrast, the maximum velocity of Shie Glacier, 50.60 cm/d, was observed at the glacier's terminus. For each period, G090138E28210N Glacier exhibited similar velocity values across the surface profile, with a maximum velocity of 39.70 cm/d. The maximum velocities of G089972E28213N Glacier, Pingcuoliesa Glacier, and Shie Glacier occur in the areas where the topography is steepest. In general, glacial surface velocities are higher in the summer than in the winter in this region. With the assistance of a terrestrial laser scanner with optimized wavelengths or other proper ground-based remote sensing instruments, the offset tracking technique based on high-resolution satellite SAR data should provide more reliable and detailed information for local and even single glacial surface displacement monitoring.

Abstract
With the deepening of electricity market reform in China, the competition in the electricity retail market becomes increasingly intense. Electricity retailers (ERs) need to explore new business models to enhance their competitiveness in the retail market. Meanwhile, with the improvement of industrial production and people's living standards, more and more nonlinear electrical equipment have been put into use, leading to severe harmonic pollution problems. Harmonic pollution causes loss of electricity, resulting in the economic loss of customers, especially for large industrial customers. In the above contexts, this paper proposes a novel business model that incorporates harmonic control as a value-added service into electricity retail contracts for utility-owned ERs. Both utility-owned ERs and customers can benefit from the designed business model. For customers, it helps them to improve the power quality while saving the electricity cost. For ERs, it helps them to cultivate the customer loyalty and improve the customer satisfaction. A case study is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed business model.

Abstract
Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO) is the traditional training algorithm for Support Vector Machines (SVMs). However, SMO does not scale well with the size of the training set. For that reason, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) algorithms, which have better scalability, are a better option for massive data mining applications. Furthermore, even with the use of SGD, training times can become extremely large depending on the data set. For this reason, accelerators such as Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are used. This work describes an implementation in hardware, using FPGA, of a fully parallel SVM using Stochastic Gradient Descent. The proposed FPGA implementation of an SVM with SGD presents speedups of more than 10,000x relative to software implementations running on a quad-core processor and up to 319x compared to state-of-the-art FPGA implementations while requiring fewer hardware resources. The results show that the proposed architecture is a viable solution for highly demanding problems such as those present in big data analysis.

Abstract
In this paper, a validation framework is proposed to evaluate the quality of uncertainty forecasts, when used to perform branch flow security assessment. The consistency between probabilistic forecasts and observations and the sharpness of the uncertainty forecasts is verified with advanced metrics widely used in weather prediction. The evaluation is completed by assessing the added value of exploiting uncertainty forecasts over the TSO current practices of using deterministic forecasts. For electric power industry, this proposed validation framework provides a way to compare the performance among alternative uncertainty models, when used to perform security assessment in power systems. The quality of the proposed metrics is illustrated and validated on historical data of the French transmission system.

Abstract
As a result of Demand Response (DR) programs implementation in the industrial sector, varying electricity prices based on Time-of-Use (ToU) rates are becoming more common, replacing traditional flate-rates per unit of energy consumption. On the other hand, increased automation of industrial facilities is gaining interest due to their reliability, flexibility, and robustness. However, it is necessary to determine a suitable task schedule in order to ensure their cost-efficiency and maximize profits. In this study, a Market-Based approach is considered to solve the Multi-Agent Task Allocation (MATA) problem for a group of homogeneous agents and tasks. While most previous studies model the problem considering flate-rates for electricity consumption, the main contribution of this study is accounting for the implementation of a DR program with varying ToU rates. The effects of optimizing the task allocation process on the costs incurred are investigated and compared to the effects of random assignment. Four different case studies are analyzed considering different-sized maps and number of tasks. The results show the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm and its ability to massively decrease the electrical charging costs.

Abstract
Most modern solutions for video game balancing are directed towards specific games. We are currently researching general methods for automatic multiplayer game balancing. The problem is modeled as a meta-game, where game-play change the rules from another game. This way, a Machine Learning agent that learns to play a meta-game, learns how to change a base game following some balancing metric. But an issue resides in the generation of high volume of game-play training data, was agents of different skill compete against each other. For this end we propose the automatic generation of a population of surrogate agents by learning sampling. In Reinforcement Learning an agent learns in a trial error fashion where it improves gradually its policy, the mapping from world state to action to perform. This means that in each successful evolutionary step an agent follows a sub-optimal strategy, or eventually the optimal strategy. We store the agent policy at the end of each training episode. The process is evaluated in simple environments with distinct properties. Quality of the generated population is evaluated by the diversity of the difficulty the agents have in solving their tasks. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.