With the advent of cloud computing and wireless sensor networks, the number of cyberattacks has rapidly increased. Therefore, the proportionate security of networks has become a challenge for organizations. Information security advisors of organizations face difficult and complex decisions in the evaluation and selection of information security controls that permit the defense of their resources and assets. Information security controls must be selected based on an appropriate level of security. However, their selection needs intensive investigation regarding vulnerabilities, risks, and threats prevailing in the organization as well as consideration of the implementation, mitigation, and budgetary constraints of the organization. The goal of this paper was to improve the information security control analysis method by proposing a formalized approach, i.e., fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). This approach was used to prioritize and select the most relevant set of information security controls to satisfy the information security requirements of an organization. We argue that the prioritization of the information security controls using fuzzy AHP leads to an efficient and cost-effective assessment and evaluation of information security controls for an organization in order to select the most appropriate ones. The proposed formalized approach and prioritization processes are based on International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 27001:2013. But in practice, organizations may apply this approach to any information security baseline manual.

In this research article, the authors have discussed the simulation, analysis, and characterization of calcium-doped zinc oxide (Ca-doped-ZnO) nanostructures for advanced generation solar cells. A comparative study has been performed to envisage the effect of Ca-doped ZnO nanoparticles (NP), seeded Ca-doped ZnO nanorods (NR), and unseeded Ca-doped ZnO NR as photoanodes in dye-sensitized solar cells. Simulations were performed in MATLAB fuzzy logic controller to study the effect of various structures on the overall solar cell efficiency. The simulation results show an error of less than 1% in between the simulated and calculated values. This work shows that the diameter of the seeded Ca-doped ZnO NR is greater than that of the unseeded Ca-doped ZnO NR. The incorporation of Ca in the ZnO nanostructure is confirmed using XRD graphs and an EDX spectrum. The optical band gap of the seeded substrate is 3.18 eV, which is higher compared to those of unseeded Ca-doped ZnO NR and Ca-doped ZnO NP, which are 3.16 eV and 3.13 ev, respectively. The increase in optical band gap results in the improvement of the overall solar cell efficiency of the seeded Ca-doped ZnO NR to 1.55%. The incorporation of a seed layer with Ca-doped ZnO NR increases the fill factor and the overall efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC).

In this research, a new single-phase direct AC-to-AC converter, operating in buck and boost mode, with a bipolar voltage gain, is proposed. The operation is accomplished through high frequency direct and indirect PWM control of a single switch with low voltage stresses. This reduces, not only the control effort, but also the switching losses. The low voltage stresses across the high frequency switches, reduce the dv/dt problem significantly without any loss and bulky voltage snubber arrangement. The operation, in its all-operating modes, has a low inductor ripple current and switching current. The proposed converter may be employed as an AC voltage restorer in a power distribution system to cope with the voltage sag and swell issues. The detailed analysis of the proposed converter is carried out in order to compare its performance with the existing converters. The simulation results obtained using the MATLAB/Simulink environment are verified through experimental results.

In this paper, a nonlinear least squares optimization method is employed to optimize the performance of pole-zero-cancellation (PZC)-based digital controllers applied to a switching converter. An extensively used step-down converter operating at 1000 kHz is considered as a plant. In the PZC technique, the adverse effect of the (unwanted) poles of the buck converter power stage is diminished by the complex or real zeros of the compensator. Various combinations of the placement of the compensator zeros and poles can be considered. The compensator zeros and poles are nominally/roughly placed while attempting to cancel the converter poles. Although PZC techniques exhibit satisfactory performance to some extent, there is still room for improvement of the controller performance by readjusting its poles and zeros. The (nominal) digital controller coefficients thus obtained through PZC techniques are retuned intelligently through a nonlinear least squares (NLS) method using the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm to ameliorate the static and dynamic performance while minimizing the sum of squares of the error in a quicker way. Effects of nonlinear components such as delay, ADC/DAC quantization error, and so forth contained in the digital control loop on performance and loop stability are also investigated. In order to validate the effectiveness of the optimized PZC techniques and show their supremacy over the traditional PZC techniques and the ones optimized by genetic algorithms (GAs), simulation results based on a MATLAB/Simulink environment are provided. For experimental validation, rapid hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) implementation of the compensated buck converter system is also performed.

Although an analytical design approach-based digital controller—which is essentially a deadbeat controller—shows zero steady-state error and no intersampling oscillations, it takes a finite number of sampling periods to settle down to a steady-state value. This paper describes the application of a derivative-free Nelder–Mead (N–M) simplex method to the digital controller for retuning of its coefficients intelligently to ensure improved settling and rise times without disturbing the deadbeat controller characteristics (i.e., no ripples between the sampling periods and no steady-state error). A switching-mode buck regulator working at 1 MHz in continuous conduction mode (CCM) is considered as a plant. Numerical simulation results depict that the N–M algorithm-based optimized digital controller not only shows improved steady-state and transient performance but also guarantees rigorous robustness against model uncertainty and disturbance as compared to its traditional counterpart, as well as the other optimized digital controller fine-tuned through other derivative-free metaheuristic optimization techniques, such as the genetic algorithm (GA). A system generator-based hardware software co-simulation is also performed to validate the simulation results.

In this paper, the employment of a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system in the security-constrained unit commitment (SCUC) problem is considered. SCUC has gained remarkable attention from researchers in the field of electric power systems, aiming to determine the generation schedule in which the system operator maximizes the system security and minimizes the generation costs, while satisfying the system and units’ constraints. Tremendous technological advances in recent years have attracted the attention of system operators to utilize novel sources of electricity, accompanied with thermal units. To this end, V2G technology recently drew remarkable consideration as a new energy resource. V2G reduces the dependence of electricity production procedures on small-scale and costly thermal units, and subsequently has a strong impact on the operation costs and ameliorates the management of load vacillations. This paper presents the use of V2G in scheduling and operating power systems. A successful technique for investigating the impacts of V2G on a real power system is running SCUC on power systems in which electric vehicle parking is installed on different buses. In order to assess its applicability, the proposed method has been applied in two case studies: the IEEE 6-bus system and the extended IEEE 30-bus system. This study presents two simulation scenarios: the SCUC problem was first evaluated separately, and then in the presence of some electrical vehicles connected to the grid. The results demonstrate the reduction of the total operation cost. In addition, by using the proposed method, the operator can specify the optimal number of vehicles needed in the parking each hour. The results can help the system operators and designers in designing, planning, and operating such power systems.