Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is the remote collection of consumption data from customer’s utility meters over telecommunications, radio, power line and other links. AMR provides water, electric and gas utility-service companies the opportunities to streamline metering, billing and collection activities, increase operational efficiency and improve customer service. Utility company uses technologies that were developed several decades ago with the majority of the meters being read visually. With manual readings, considerable time is used to physically check out each unit. AMR becomes a viable option to overcome this problem of time wastage to obtain the meter readings. There are many different forms of communication links that can be utilized as the communication medium in an AMR system. One such link is the power line carrier or PLC. The advantages of using the PLC as the communication medium are readily apparent since the power line network is the property of the utility company and its infrastructure is already there. However, power lines are never meant for communication and creates much noise and therefore, various modifications has to be made to make the PLC suitable to be the AMR communication channel. The AMR system consists of three major components: the meter interface module, communications system, and data concentrator. This paper details a feasibility study on the creation of a robust bi-directional/two-way communication system between an electricity meter and a distant control unit (data concentrator) over the low voltage (LV) distribution grid. Basic functions of the AMR system include the provision for remote connection and disconnection of meter and fraud detection features at both the meter interface and the data concentrator. As a support system to the entire AMR, batteries are utilized. They are especially important in the cases of power failures. Lithium-ion batteries are the type of batteries that are used as these batteries tend to last longer than most other batteries. The main advantage of this system is that it is a low cost system that produces very encouraging results and it can be implemented upon existing electro-mechanical meters without the need of purchasing new meters. With many existing meters being the electro-mechanical meters, the need for a high-cost, large-scale implementation of new electronic device meters to enable implementation of the AMR system is unnecessary. The cost of implementation is low and the benefits, especially economically, that it brings to the utility company are immense.

In assessing the power system, the most important issue is the system behavior when the system is affected by a disturbance. In some plants in case a small event, oscillations are created that are not easily damped and this lack of damping causes the power plant shut down. So, conditions should be set such that the power plant damps the oscillations as soon as possible and returns it to the stable conditions. In this paper, microcontroller-based power system stabilizer (PSS) is designed that increases the single machine dynamic stability of the power system connected to an infinite bus by improving damping in the low frequency oscillation. The system stability is investigated by the eigenvalues and the results of dynamic simulations are provided in the time domain. Programmable interface controllers (PIC) have been used in designing digital PSS,then the continuous time domain PSS is converted to discrete time domain PSS and finally it is implemented on the microcontroller chip.

Background: Various classification criteria of brain infarct are used in clinical trials and stroke registries. The practical Iranian criteria (PIC) is designed for clinical practice. Methods: From March 2001 through March 2003, all consecutive stroke patients admitted to Vali-e- Asr Hospital, Birjand, Khorasan, Iran were included in this prospective observational study. Patients underwent a standard battery of diagnostic investigations by a stroke neurologist. Data on patients, demographics, clinical presentations, and diagnostic work-up were kept in a database. Two stroke neurologists and a general practitioner independently reviewed the data of 20 randomly selected patients and classified patients according to the PIC classification of stroke topography and etiology. The PIC is designed by stroke neurologists and approved in the University of Alberta, Canada. The degrees of interrater agreement were measured with unweighted k-statistics. Results: Among 302 stroke patients, 20 patients (11 females, 9 males) were randomly selected. The three interrater agreement for topographic subtyping of the patients was 0.95%, k = 0.915 (0.662 – 1), P < 0.0001 and for etiologic diagnosis was 0.90 %; k = 0.9022 (0.753 – 1), P < 0.0001. Stroke neurologists agreed in topographic diagnosis for 20 out of the 20 cases (100%; k= 1; 95% CI, 1.0 to 1.0; P < 0.0001). The general practitioner arrived at the same topographic diagnosis for 19 out of the 20 cases (0.95%; k = 0.875; 95% CI, 0.638 to 1.0; P < 0.0001). Stroke neurologists agreed in etiologic diagnosis for 18 out of the 20 cases (0.90%; k = 0.855; 95% CI, 0.66 to 1.0; P < 0.0001). The general practitioner arrived at the same etiologic diagnosis for 18 out of the 18 cases that the two stroke neurologists agreed (100%; k = 0.875; 95% CI, 1.0 to 1.0; P < 0.0001). Conclusion: The interrater agreement of PIC for topographic and etiologic classification of brain infarct is much higher than the other classification systems. The PIC could be useful in stroke practice.