Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.

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  Market power in electric power markets: Indications of competitiveness in spatial prices for wholesale electricity

  Denton, Michael John, 1955- (The University of Arizona., 1997)

  The issue of market delineation and power in the wholesale electric energy market is explored using three separate approaches: two of these are analyses of spatial pricing data to explore the functional size of the markets, and the third is a series of experimental tests of the effects of different cost structures and market mechanisms on oligopoly strength in those markets. An equilibrium model of spatial network competition is shown to yield linear relationships between spatial prices. A data set comprising two years of spatial weekly peak and off-peak prices and weather for 6 locations in the Western States Coordinating Council and the Southwest Power Pool is subjected to a pairwise cointegration analysis. The use of dummy variables to account the the flow directions is found to significantly improve model performance. The second analytical technique utilizes the extraction of principal components from a spatial price correlation matrix to identify the extent of natural markets. One year of daily price observations for eleven locations within the WSCC is compiled and eigenvectors are extracted and subjected to oblique rotation, each of which is then interpreted as representing a separate geographic market. The results show that two distinct natural markets, correlated at 84%, account for over 96% of the variation in the spatial prices in the WSSC. Together, the findings support the assertion that the wholesale electricity market in the Western U.S. is large and highly competitive. The experimental analysis utilizes a radial three node network in which suppliers located at the outer nodes sell to buyers located at the central node. The parameterization captures the salient characteristics of the existing bulk power markets, and includes cyclical demand, transmission losses, as well as fixed and avoidable fixed costs for all agents. Treatments varied the number of sellers, the avoidable fixed cost structures, and the trading mechanism. Results indicated that sealed bid markets greatly reduced the ability of sellers to exert market power. Overall the existence of higher avoidable fixed costs tended to ameliorate market power effects.
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  Industrial Capitalism and the Company Town: Structural Power, Bio-Power, and Identity in Nineteenth-Century Fayette, Michigan

  Cowie, Sarah E. (The University of Arizona., 2008)

  This research explores the subtle distribution of power within early American industrial capitalism, as seen in the nineteenth-century company town of Fayette, Michigan. Research methods for the project include GIS-based analysis of the built environment and artifact patterns; the development of a historical ethnography for the town; and archaeological excavations of household refuse excavated from three class-based neighborhoods (an artifact database is attached to this document in CD format). Issues surrounding power and agency are explored in regard to three heuristic categories of power. In the first category, the company imposed a system of structural, class-based power that is most visible in hierarchical differences in pay and housing, as well as consumer behavior. A second category, bio-power, addresses disciplinary activities surrounding health and the human body. The class system extended to discrepancies in the company's regulation of employee health, as observed in medicinal artifacts, disposal patterns of industrial waste, incidence of intestinal parasites, and unequal access to healthcare. In addition, landscape analysis shows how the built environment served as a disciplinary technology to reinforce hegemonic and naturalized class divisions, to regenerate these divisions through symbolic violence and workers' daily practices, and to impose self-regulation. The third ensemble of power relations is pluralistic, heterarcical, and determined by personal identity (e.g., consumer behavior and gender). Individuals drew upon non-economic capital to bolster social status and express identity apart from the corporate hierarchy. This research explores the social impacts of our industrial heritage and the potential repercussions of industrialization today.
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  Development of Monolithic Switched-Capacitor Power Converters for Self-Powered Microsystems

  Su, Ling (The University of Arizona., 2009)

  Modern electronics continues to push past boundaries of integration and functional density toward elusive, completely autonomous, self-powered microsystems. As systems continue to shrink, however, less energy is available on board, leading to short device lifetimes (run-time or battery life). Extended battery life is particularly advantageous in the systems with limited accessibility, such as biomedical implants and structure-embedded micro-sensors. The power management process usually requires compact and efficient power converters to be embedded in these microsystems. This dissertation introduces switched-capacitor (SC) power converter designs that make all these techniques realizable on silicon.Four different integrated SC power converters with multiple control schemes are designed here to provide low-power high-efficient power sources. First, a monolithic step-down power converter with subthreshold z-domain digital pulse-width modulation (DPWM) controller is proposed for ultra-low power microsystems. The subthreshold design significantly reduces the power dissipation in the controller. Second, an efficient monolithic master-slave complementary power converter with a feedback controller that purely operates in subthreshold operation region is discussed to tailor for the aforementioned ultra-low power applications. Third, we introduce an efficient monolithic step-down SC power stage with multiple-gain control and on-chip capacitor sizing for self-powered microsystems. The multiple-gain control helps the converter to constantly maintain high efficiency over a large input/output range. The size-adjustable pumping capacitors allow the output voltage to be regulated at different desired levels, with a constant 50% duty ratio. The monolithic implementations in these three integrated CMOS power converters effectively suppress noise and glitches caused by parasitic components due to bonding, packaging and PCB wiring. Fourth, an efficient step-up and step-down SC power converter with multiple-gain closed-loop controller is presented. The measurements and simulation results in these four power converters demonstrate the techniques proposed in this research. The approaches presented in this dissertation are evidently viable for realizing compact and high efficient SC power converters, contributing to next generation power-efficient microsystems designs.