This study proposes an artificial hummingbird algorithm (AHA) for energy management (EM) for optimal operation of a microgrid (MG), including conventional sources and renewable energy sources (RES), with an incentive-based demand response (DR). Due to the stochastic nature of solar and wind output power and the uncertainty of prices and load, a probabilistic EM with hybrid AHA and point estimation method (PEM) is proposed to model this uncertainty by utilizing the normal and Weibull distribution functions. The PEM method is considered a good tool for handling stochastic EM problems. It achieves good results using the same procedures used with the deterministic problems while maintaining low computational efforts. The proposed AHA technique is employed to solve a deterministic incentive DR program, with the goal of reducing the overall cost, which includes the cost of conventional generator fuel and the cost of power transaction with the main grid while taking into account the load demand. Two different case studies are tested. The simulation results of the proposed AHA is compared with the results of well-known metaheuristic algorithms to demonstrate its efficacy. According to AHA’s results, a total reduction of energy consumption by 104 KWh for the first case study and 2677 MWh for the second case study is achieved while achieving the lowest overall operating cost. The results demonstrate that the AHA is adequate for tackling the EM problem. Then, to examine the effect of uncertainty on the MG state, a probabilistic EM problem is solved using AHA-PEM.

The analysis of the movement of people in a shopping area with the aim of improving marketing is an important research topic. Many conventional methods are dependent on the density of people in the area, which is easily estimated by counting the people entering or exiting the area. However, a high density does not always mean an increase in activity, as certain people are simply passing the area at a given time. The primary goal of this study was to introduce a set of indicators for measuring the bustle of the area, which we call “Nigiwai,” from pedestrian movement by using an analogy from classical kinematics. Such indicators can be used to measure the impact of promotional events and to optimize the design of the area. Our novel indicators were evaluated with simulated pedestrian scenarios and were demonstrated to distinguish shopping scenarios from those in which people move around without shopping successfully, even when the latter scenarios had much higher densities. The indicators were computed solely from the pedestrian trajectory, which can easily be obtained from ordinary sensors using deep learning-based techniques. As a demonstration with real data, we applied our method to a video of a street and provided a visualization of the indicators.