Efficient Generation Portfolio Construction Using Time-Varying Correlations

We constructed a procurement portfolio for the Indian power sector using two variants of the dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model to derive time-varying correlations between major coal indices. We used prices and qualities of observed cargos to adjust indices for quality gaps as well as for freight costs and power plant efficiency factors. Using the relative homogeneity of the energy content of imports from Australia, South Africa, and Indonesia, we found that the regional seaborne market is highly correlated during normal economic conditions, while suffering brief departures in correlation during demand and supply shocks. Our results show that the buying behavior of power producers is aligned with the mean-variance efficient portfolio of delivered prices using time-varying correlation estimates, but not free-on-board coal index prices. This study challenges the notion that thermal coal importers only source material with a freight price advantage and highlights the importance of coal quality gaps in power production.     

Crustal Heterogeneity and Seismotectonics of the National Capital Region, Delhi, India

To better understand the relationship between crustal heterogeneity and seismotectonics in the National Capital Region (NCR), Delhi, India, we carried out local P- and S-velocity tomography beneath the NCR. First arrival times of the first P- and S-wave from 275 crustal earthquakes recorded by the Seismic Telemetry Network in and around Delhi of the India Meteorological Department, India, are inverted to obtain crustal P-, S-velocity and V _P /V _S variations in the region. Our tomographic images of the upper crust reflect well the surface geological and tectonic features. The Delhi fold belt is identified as low V _P, high V _S and low V _P/V _S. The Sohna hot spring region is appearing as low V _P, low V _S and high V _P /V _S correlating with the possible presence of fluid-filled rocks. The crustal seismicity is distributed in both the high- and low-velocity zones, but most distinctly in the low V _P /V _S region.     

Nature of Quiet Sun Oscillations Using Data from the Hinode, TRACE, and SOHO Spacecraft

We study the nature of quiet-Sun oscillations using multi-wavelength observations from TRACE, Hinode, and SOHO. The aim is to investigate the existence of propagating waves in the solar chromosphere and the transition region by analyzing the statistical distribution of power in different locations, e.g. in bright magnetic (network), bright non-magnetic and dark non-magnetic (inter-network) regions, separately. We use Fourier power and phase-difference techniques combined with a wavelet analysis. Two-dimensional Fourier power maps were constructed in the period bands 2??C?4?minutes, 4??C?6?minutes, 6??C?15?minutes, and beyond 15?minutes. We detect the presence of long-period oscillations with periods between?15 and 30?minutes in bright magnetic regions. These oscillations were detected from the chromosphere to the transition region. The Fourier power maps show that short-period powers are mainly concentrated in dark regions whereas long-period powers are concentrated in bright magnetic regions. This is the first report of long-period waves in quiet-Sun network regions. We suggest that the observed propagating oscillations are due to magnetoacoustic waves, which can be important for the heating of the solar atmosphere.     

Variability of Spectral Energy Distribution of Blazar S5 0716+714

The emission from blazars is known to be variable at all wavelengths. The flux variability is often accompanied by spectral changes. Spectral energy distribution (SED) changes must be associated with changes in the spectra of emitting electrons and/or the physical parameters of the jet. Meaningful modeling of blazar broadband spectra is required to understand the extreme conditions within the emission region. Not only is the broadband SED crucial, but also information about its variability is needed to understand how the highest states of emission occur and how they differ from the low states. This may help in discriminating between models. Here we present the results of our SED modeling of the blazar S5 0716+714 during various phases of its activity. The SEDs are classified into different bins depending on the optical brightness state of the source.     

Scaling of constant-ductility residual displacement spectrum

Structures undergoing inelastic displacements during earthquake ground motions are known to sustain some amount of residual displacements, which may make those unusable or unsafe. In this study an attempt is made to estimate residual displacements for elastic-perfectly-plastic single-degree-of-freedom oscillators with a given ductility ratio. Such oscillators belong to the class of bilinear hysteresis models applicable to steel structures, with post-yield-stiffness ratio taken as zero, and may be used for the conservative estimates of residual displacements when the post-yield-stiffness ratio is unlikely to become negative. Statistical estimation of residual displacement spectrum via normalization with respect to inelastic or elastic spectral displacements is considered and expressions are proposed for both types of normalizations. The statistical dependence of residual displacement on the seismological and site parameters and strong motion duration is also studied and a simple scaling model is proposed in terms of earthquake magnitude, epicentral distance, and geologic site condition parameter for the seismic region of western U.S.A. According to this model, the variation of residual displacement with period primarily depends on the site conditions, and the residual displacements are more sensitive to ductility ratio at low ductility ratios.     

Koyna,India, an ideal site for near field earthquake observations

The Koyna earthquake of M 6.3 on December 10, 1967 is the largest artificial water reservoir triggered earthquake globally. It claimed ～ 200 human lives and devastated the Koyna township. Before the impoundment of the Shivaji Sagar Lake created by the Koyna Dam, there were no earthquakes reported from the region. Initially a few stations were operated in the region by the CentralWater and Power Research Station (CWPRS). The seismic station network grew with time and currently the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad is operating 23 broadband seismographs and 6 bore hole seismic stations. Another reservoir, Warna, was created in 1985, which provided a further impetus to Reservoir Triggered Seismicity (RTS). Every year following the monsoon, water levels rise in the two reservoirs and there is an immediate increase in triggered earthquakes in the vicinity of Koyna-Warna reservoirs in the months of August–September. Peak RTS is observed in September and later during December.Another spurt in triggered earthquakes is observed during the draining of the reservoirs in the months of April- May. A comparative study of RTS earthquake sequences and the ones occurring in nearby regions made it possible to identify four common characteristics of RTS sequences that discriminate them from normal earthquake sequences. As the RTS events continue to occur at Koyna in a large number in a limited area of 20 km x 30 km, at shallow depths (mostly 2 to 9 km), the region being accessible for all possible observations and there being no other source of earthquakes within 100 km of Koyna Dam, it was suggested to be an ideal site for near field observations of earthquakes. This suggestion was discussed by the global community at an ICDP sponsored workshop held at Hyderabad and Koyna in 2011. There was an unanimous agreement about the suitability of the site for deep scientific drilling; however, a few additional observations/experiments were suggested. These were carried out in the following three years and another ICDP workshop was held in 2014, which totally supported setting up a borehole laboratory for near field investigations at Koyna. Location of a Pilot Bore-hole was decided on the basis of seismic activity and other logistics. The 3 km deep Pilot Borehole was spudded on December 20, 2016 and completed on June 11, 2017.     

On the structure of sea-breeze fronts observed near the coastline of Thumba,India

An investigation has been made of the structure of sea-breeze fronts observed at Thumba mostly during the months of December to April using data from a Doppler SODAR and in situ measurements of wind components, humidity and temperature. The study shows that the vertical wind structure observed in the SODAR height range provides a distinct signature of the passage of a front and that the intensity of the front is decided by the intensity and direction of the prevailing winds as well as the amount of rotation of the wind vector during the onset of the sea-breeze. Spectral analyses of vertical winds during the passage of the front reveal a dominant periodicity of about 6 min for strong sea-breeze fronts.     

Estimation of local magnitude of rockbursts using strong motion accelerograms in the mines of Kolar Gold Fields

Rockbursts are minor earthquakes induced due to mining operations. The seismic signals recorded using geophones in the near field are generally saturated and are not suitable for estimating the true magnitudes. The strong-motion accelerograms recorded due to rockbursts are therefore used to obtain the Wood-Anderson synthetic seismograms for getting accurate and reliable values of the local magnitudes. Using several typical strong-motion accelerograms of rockbursts in the mines of Kolar Gold Fields, the magnitudes have been computed in the present study. Correlations of peak ground acceleration and peak ground velocity with the magnitude, studied for the rockbursts vis-à-vis the natural earthquakes in the Koyna dam area, suggest the mechanical similarity between the two different types of events. The results and findings are described in this paper.     

A note on the statistics of ordered peaks in stationary stochastic processes

Numerical simulation experiments have been carried out to evaluate the relative performance of three approximate formulations owing to Amini and Trifunac,[1] Gupta and Trifunac[2] and Basu et al.[3] for probability distributions of ordered peaks in stationary stochastic processes. The first two formulations are based on the assumption that the unordered peaks are statistically independent; whereas the formulation of Basu et al.[3] considers the dependence via Markov transition probability. In the formulation of Gupta and Trifunac,[2] the probability distribution of nth order peak is inherently conditioned by the fact that at most (n−1) peaks can occur with higher amplitudes and, thus, the ordered peaks are necessarily dependent. In this paper, ensembles of stationary time-histories are generated for three PSDFs representing a narrow-band, a broad-band and a band-limited white noise type of processes. Comparison of the results for the expected value and standard deviation for various orders of peaks, obtained by averaging over these ensembles, with the corresponding results obtained from the above mentioned three approximations, defined in terms of the moments of the PSDFs, has shown that the formulation of Gupta and Trifunac[2] describes the data well.