We employ survey data for 108 developing countries over the period 2006-2017 and estimate an ordered probit model to determine firm country characteristics that affect probability a is energy poor - i.e., will report electricity obstacle firm's operations. find firms experienced power outages in manufacturing industry are more likely be poor. In contrast, majority-owned government older less Th...

This work evaluates a real-time algorithm to localize a vehicle on a highway in the direction of travel without the use of GPS. The algorithm uses a particle filter to estimate vehicle position along a map of road grade using real-time pitch measurements from an in-vehicle pitch sensor as the input. Experiments over 60 kilometers along Interstate I-80 and US Route 220 in Pennsylvania are used t...

Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are widely used for the of land vehicles. However, positioning accuracy GNSS, such as global system (GPS), deteriorates in urban areas due to signal blockage and multipath effects. GNSS can be integrated with a micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS)–based inertial (INS), reduced sensor (RISS) using Kalman filter (KF) enhance performance solution challenging e...

As power system loading increases, larger blackouts due to cascading outages become more likely. We investigate a critical loading at which the average size of blackouts increases sharply to examine whether the probability distribution of blackout sizes shows the power tails observed in real blackout data. Three different models are used, including two simulations of cascading outages in electr...

This paper is about the measurement of Internet outages with a focus on the Border Gateway Protocol, as one of the most common routing protocols. First some background information about the protocol and its tasks are described, followed by a concrete example of last year’s events in Egypt. Thereafter a self-made analysis regarding the earthquake in New Zealand in 2011 is presented. Finally a co...

Unscheduled boiler outages in process industries are a major problem resulting not only in expensive emergency repairs, but also loss of production. This paper draws on the experience of the author's company relating to common failures of pressure parts of boilers. The paper identifies the most common types of pressure part failure and the metallurgical mechanism involved. With a knowledge of t...

The deficiency of secure and reliable electrical power is a constraint to firm performance its competitiveness in developing countries. Several countries the south Asian region face electricity shortages leading frequent outages. This study investigate effect outages on technical efficiency firms selected South employed stochastic frontier approach estimate firms. We use OLS Beta regression man...