Why Technical English

Once more about Fukushima accident

April 15, 2013
4 Comments

Composed by Galina Vitkova

Some facts about the NPP

Two years ago, on 11 March 2011, in Japan the strongest earthquake accompanying by tsunami occurred. The earthquake and tsunami waves (the maximum wave height made 40.5 metre) caused widespread devastation across a large part of Japan. More than 14,000 lives lost. In addition to this, at least 10,000 people remain missing. Many more inhabitants were displaced from their homes because towns and villages were destroyed or swept away.

The tsunami caused the serious accident at the Nuclear Power Plant Fukushima-1(or NPP Fukushima Daiichi).

The NPP Fukushima-1 is located near Okum city in Fukushima prefecture. The NPP was built in 1960–1970 and is operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The NPP is equipped with six nuclear units of total capacity 4.7 GW.

Earthquake and accident

The accident at the NPP Fukushima-1 occurred practically immediately after the earthquake and tsunami. The reactors in operation were shutdown. After that the external electricity feed disappeared too. The wave submerged reserve diesel generators, as a result of it the reactor cooling systems of Units 1, 2, 3 failed to function. Active zones of these reactors were melted.

In the wake of the reaction between zirconium and water vapour the hydrogen formed. It leads to a series of explosions and demolition of buildings, where the reactors are installed.

Units 5 and 6 were not destroyed as their diesel generator kept intacted. With the help of it two reactors and two spent nuclear fuel pools were managed to be cooled.

The accident impact and radioactive pollution

As a consequence of the NPP accident radioactive substances, among them iodine 131 (with very short half-life period) and ceasium 137 (with 30 years long half-life period), were emitted into the atmosphere and the see. On the site a few of plutonium was also found out. The radioactive contamination of the marine environment occurred by aerial deposition and by continuing discharges and outflow of water with a various level of radioactivity from the four damaged reactors at the NPP.

Total quantity of radioactive releases made 20 % of emissions after the Chernobyl disaster. In order to reduce the external exposure to the population beyond a distance of 30 km from the Fukushima-1 inhabitants were evacuated from this area . The contaminated land area, which should be deactivated, makes 3 % of the Japan territory.

Radioactive substances were revealed in drinking water and food not only in Fukushima prefecture, but in the other regions of Japan, too. Many countries including Russia banned to export of Japanese products. Following the accident at the Fukushima NPP on 11 march 2011, the European Union approved the Implementing Regulation of 26 October 2012. The Regulation imposed special conditions governing the import of feed and food originating in or consigned from Japan .The controls performed at import show that these special conditions are correctly implemented by the Japanese authorities. A next review of the Regulations is foreseen to be available by 31 March 2014.

For the first time after the Chernobyl accident in April 1986 the reputation of nuclear power was damaged so seriously. The world put on considering cap if nuclear power could be safe. Many countries blocked projects in this industry. Germany declared that by 2022 it will shut down the last NPP and will develop renewable sources of electricity production.

Removal of the accident impact

In compliance with the government of Japan intentions the full removal of the consequences of the accident at the NPP Fukushima-1 will take 30 to 40 years. In December 2011 cool shutdown of reactors was completed. After that the work on extracting of spent nuclear fuel from the spent nuclear fuel pools commenced. Then the nuclear fuel from entire reactors is supposed to be extracted. After that the complete demolition and decommission of the NPP technological equipment should be performed.

New accident

On 18 March 2013 in the evening a new accident caused by failure of cooling systems of spent nuclear fuel pools of Units 1, 3, 4 occurred. It happened after power outage at the NPP Fukushima-1. On 19 March the company ТЕРСО managed to put into run the cooling system of Unit 1. Nevertheless, troubles and problems in the cooling systems of Units 3, 4 and in the common pool continue till now.

Notes

  • Nuclear power produces about 14 % electricity production in the world.

  • In Japan the production of electricity in the year 2007 before Fukushima accident made 264 TWh with the installed capacity of 49 GW (i.e. 23,5 % of total Japanese NPP installed capacity).

  • In Germany electricity produced with NPP installed capacity of 20 GW (23,5 % of total German installed capacity) in the year 2007 amounted to 141 TWh. You can see changes in Germany energy policy after the Fukushima accident in Energy policy of Germany after Fukushima,and in Германия после Фукусимы.

  • You can find more details about about world producers of electricity in
    Statistics on nuclear power.

If you are tired by studying figures, take a rest and fix your eyes on the picture below. Enjoj!

hnízdo2

Abbreviations

NPP – Nuclear Power Plant
ТЕРСО – Tokyo Electric Power Company
TWh – terawatt hour
GW – gigawatt

References

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:299:0031:0041:EN:PDF , Official Journal of the European Union
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html
http://www.aif.ru/society/,March 2013, Аргументы и Факты, март 2013
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/

Related articles


Hydropower makes 16% of world electricity

January 31, 2013
4 Comments

Dear friend of Technical English! 

This once we will discuss hydropower. Hydro accounted for 16% of global electricity consumption. In 2009/2010 11 000 hydro power plants (HPPs) in 150 countries were generating electricity. The total electricity generated by HPPs in 2009 reached 3 329 TWh, 16.5% of global electricity production.

 So, pay attention and make comments to the technical text below. Enjoy!

English: Annual electricity net generation in ...

 Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro Power Plant

The Sayano–Shushenskaya hydro power plant is the largest power plant in Russia by the installed capacity and the sixth-largest operating hydro power plant in the world at present. The HPP is part of the Yenisei Cascade that is located in the territory of the Krasnoyarsk district and the Republic of Khakassia. It comprises three stages:

  1. Sayano–Shushenskaya HPP(installed capacity — 6400 MW);
  2. Maynskaya HPP (installed capacity — 321 MW);
  3. Krasnoyarskaya HPP(installed capacity — 6000 MW).

 All hydro power plants were designed by the institute „Lengidroproject“. The main consumers of electricity produced by the HPPs are undertakings of the aluminium smelter company „Rusal“. The considerable part of produced electricity is delivered to the energy system of Siberia.

Hydro  power plant and machinery

At the Sayano–Shushenskaya HPP 10 hydropower turbine and generator units are installed each of capacity 640 MW at 194-metre (636 Ft) head. The efficiency coefficient of a turbine in an optimal zone makes about 96%, the total weight of a turbine is 1440 t..

The turbines power up 10 hydrogenerators, equipped with a rotor of 10.3 m diameter, generating electricity at 15.75 kV. The turbines were manufactured at the “Leningradsky Metallichesky Zavod”, whereas the works “Electrosila” manufactured and supplied generators.

English: Generator Hall of Sayano–Shushenskaya...

   One generating power unit consists of two

   neighbour  hydropower turbine and generator units and  runs for one group  of three one-phase transformers each of capacity   5333 MWA at voltage 15.75/500 kV (in total 15 main transformers are installed at the HPP).

The open switchyard at 500 kV is located in the distance of 1.2 km lower along the current of the Yenisei river. The electricity is delivered from the HPP to the switchyard through three electricity transmission lines along the left bank of the river and two transmission lines using the long-span support placed on the rock excavation on the right bank. The electric power from the switchyard to the energy system is provided through four transmission lines at 500 kV.

 Sayano-Shushenakaya dam constructions

The station constructions include the concrete arch-gravity dam, an administrative power plant building located near the dam, and an additional spillway. The dam of 245.5 metres (805 ft) high raises up the maximum head of 220 metres (720 ft). Water pressure for the dam is approximately 30 million tons, 60% of which is neutralized by the dam own weight and 40% is carried to rock on the bank.

The dam is constructed to “safely” withstand earthquakes up to 8 on the Richter scale. It was recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records for the strongest construction of its type.

The dam supports the Sayano-Shushenskoye reservoir, with a total capacity of 31.34 km3, useful capacity of 15.34 km3 and surface area of 621 km2 (240 sq mi).

Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station

PS:  You can find unknown words and expressions from the area of power engineering (including hydro power) in TrainTE Vocabulary (Power engineering: English–Russian-Czech vocabulary and in  Technical English Vocabulary – power engineering (Russian–English–Czech vocabulary).

References

enwikipedia.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%B0%D1%8F%CC%81%D0%BD%D0%BE-%D0%A8%D1%83%CC%81%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%8D%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%CC%81%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F

 


Happy New Year!

January 5, 2013
Leave a Comment

Sob2013

 

I look forward to helping you more improve your Technical English this year.

Galina Vitkova

 


Project ITER in progress

December 16, 2012
Leave a Comment
Composed by Galina Vitkova 

The ProjectITER is a large-scale international scientific project intended to prove the practicability of nuclear fusion as an energy source. ITER was originally an acronym for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but at present it is not considered an official abbreviation, but is connected with the Latin word “Iter” that means “way”, “journey”, “direction”.

English: deuterium-tritium fusion diagram, poi...

The project is expected to collect the data necessary for the design and operation of the first electricity-producing fusion power plant. As known all nuclear power plants (NPPs) currently operating through over the world produce electricity from fission accompanied by high-level and  long-life radioactive waste, which causes great protests of common people against these NPPs.  

The project is based on the Soviet-Russian technology tokamak (toroidal chamber with magnetic coils), which is a device using a magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus.

ITER is the culmination of decades of fusion research: more than 200 tokamaks (see also Nuclear powertokamaks) built over the world have paved the way to the ITER experiment.

Some History

Just remind the ITER Agreement was officially signed at the Elysée Palace in Paris on 21 November 2006 by Ministers from the seven ITER Members (China, theEuropean Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and theUnited States) in the presence of French President Jacques Chirac and the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. This Agreement established a legal international entity to be responsible for construction, operation, and decommissioning of ITER. The seven ITER Members have shared in the design of the installation, the creation of the international project structure, and in its funding.

Fusion Power Grid

On 24 October 2007, after ratification by all Members, the ITER Agreement entered into force and officially constituted the ITER Organization. ITER was originally expected to cost approximately €5 billion. However, the rising price of raw materials and changes to the initial design have augmented that the amount more than triple, i.e. to €16 billion. Necessary to add that ITER members make 90% of their contribution in kind, i.e. they contribute by equipment. It means the members produce appropriate devices and fund them into the project. The remaining 10% of the contribution are paid in cash by the members. Russia undertook obligations to manufacture 18 high technology systems for the project ITER.

The program is anticipated to last for 30 years – 10 for construction, and 20 years of operation. The reactor is expected to take 10 years to build with completion in 2018 (according to some sources in 2020). The ITER site in Cadarache, France stands ready: in 2010, construction began on the ITER Tokamak and scientific buildings.

Testing

At the end of October 2012 in the Saint Petersburg Research institute of electrophysical devices named after D.V.Efremov the first tests of the unique equipment within the project ITER were launched.

Tokamak - Creating the Sun on Earth

 

The components of the diverter target prototype of the ITER reactor faced to plasma are being tested (the details about the diverter target can be found in Вольфрамовая облицовка диверторной мишени для ). A proprietary test facility IDTF (ITER Divertor Test Facility) has been built up for testing. The facility enables to expose the ITER components to the same thermal burden as during operation and  maintenance of the experimental reactor. The plasma temperature is supposed to grow up to 100 - 150  mil. degrees and expected heat loading on the diverter surface will rise up to 20 MW/m2.  That is why the components under tests shall comply with the very strict requirements.  

The components to be tested on the Russian facility have been produced in Japan. The testing is held in the presence of the ITER Agencies of Russia and Japan representants as well as with participation of the ITER International Organisation specialists.  

The conclusions about the test results are expected to be made by the end of November 2012. It will be the first of numerous series of tests and trials the results of which will enable to master well-proven technology of manufacturing the ITER components.

Diagram illustrating, in a schematic way, the ...

 

PS: The technical terms on the topic can be found in
TrainTE Vocabulary (Power engineering: English–Russian-Czech vocabulary) and in
 Vocabulary – power engineering (Russian–English–Czech).
PPS: The Russian version of the article titled Проект ИТЭР в реализации is published at the blog Technical English Remarks.

  References

 

Related articles

 


Energy policy of Germany after Fukushima

September 26, 2012
4 Comments

Dear friend of Technical English,

There are several posts at this blog devoted to power engineering. In order to gain more details concerning the topic visit About the blog. There you will find the full list of such posts. Because of interest to the subject another new technical text is offered below for studying and discussing. Improve your Technical English, enrich your vocabulary in this area, write comments expressing your opinion about the future of electricity supply. Indicate your opinion on  renewables VS nuclear power plants. Uncover new technical terms in TrainTE Vocabulary

 GOOD LUCK!

Germany’s energy policy after Fukushima

 Composed by Galina Vitkova

Energy Concept 2010

Before FukushimaGermany had ambitious energy targets. Its Energy Concept 2010 approved an extension of the operating times of the 17 German nuclear power plants (NPPs) as a bridging technology for renewable energy supply.

The energy and climate package of 26 November 2010 (Energy Concept 2010) comprised four key elements:

  1. Allocating additional generation quantities to the German nuclear power plants, leading to an average extension of the plants operating time of 12 years;
  2. Adding provisions for the transposition of the Directive 2009/71/Euratom, containing further safety requirements for nuclear power plants. Member States should have brought into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by 22 July 2011;
  3. Approving (on 28. 09. 2010) the new nuclear fuel rod tax law introducing a tax on nuclear fuel rods, aimed at raising EUR 2.3 billion per year;
  4. Approving (also on 28. 09. 2010) the law on a new Energie- und Klimafonds (Energy and Climate Fund – EKFG), creating the special energy and climate fund for the promotion of environmentally friendly, reliable and affordable energy supply.
Map in French of the German nuclear power plants

Map in French of the German nuclear power plants (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Energy policy shift 2011

Legislative changes following the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 (energy policy shift 2011) stopped the nuclear extension. An amendment of the Atomic Energy Act (AtG) stipulated the immediate shutdown of eight power plants and set down a phase-out of the remaining nine nuclear power plants until 2022.

Under these circumstances the German Energy Agency (dena) presented a new study examining the consequences of the German energy policy shift and challenges lying ahead. The Agency predicts that electricity prices will considerably rise until 2050 and conventional power plants will still be needed to a large extent to ensure the security of supply and balance relative to the increasing amount of intermittent renewable energy input.

The intermittence of photovoltaics (PV), for instance, is illustrated on http://www.sma.de/en/company/pv-electricity-produced-in-germany.html, Performance of Photovoltaics (PV) in Germany.  On the site you can see at any time the total output of all PV plants in Germany installed up to the specified cut-off date. At present the total installed capacity of PV plants in Germany amounts to 29 GW. The examples of their generation in profit (in 2012) and low (in 2011) yield days are given in the table below (see also Intermittence of renewables).

Low yield days

Profit yield days

01.01.2011 3 GWh 0.1 hours daily 25.05.2012 179 GWh 6 hours daily
17.03.2011 8 GWh 0.28 hours daily 24.05.2012 165 GWh 6.7 hours daily
30.07.2011 37 GWh 1.28 hours daily 27.06.2012 119 GWh 4 hours daily

 The study was carried out related to the Germany’s target to increase the share of renewable energy sources in the electricity supply to at least 80% until 2050.  When preparing the study dena cooperated with the RWTHAachenUniversity. The study was accepted by RWE AG.

According to the study the installed power capacity in Germany will amount to 240 GW in 2050 in total, with 170 GW of renewable power plants and 61 GW provided by conventional fossil-fuelled power plants. It means that conventional capacity will only decrease by 37% compared with 2010. By 2050 efficient gas and coal-fired power plants will provide roughly 60% of secure electricity supply, whereas renewable power plants deliver 24%.

To ensure the security of electricity supply 49 GW of new conventional power plant capacity is needed preferably by 2020, at the latest by 2030.

According to dena unless additional power plants are built, Germany will import approximately 134 TWh or 22% of the electricity consumed by 2050.

In view of the above need for new conventional power plants and possible imports, the expansion of the grid infrastructure including the connection of offshore wind farms, spinning reserve energy and new storage capacity, enlargement of the existing distribution and transmission grids electricity prices will greatly rise until 2050.

Functioning internal European electricity market

As of 2020 it will increasingly come to situations in which the renewable power production exceeds the demand. The excess of renewable electricity for which there is no demand in Germany or abroad may reach 66 TWh or 15% of the electricity generated in Germany until 2050. So, without a new market design, renewables would not be competitive by 2050. The Agency therefore demands a complete overhaul of the EEG that promotes the input of renewable energy into the German grids by granting fixed feed-in tariffs. These tariffs are higher than the electricity prices at the exchanges. For these reasons it proposes a European capacity market to encourage and stimulate investments in power plants that provide secure capacities.

Nuclear power plant "Kernkraftwerk Emslan...

Nuclear power plant “Kernkraftwerk Emsland” (Photo credit: flokru)

 Abbreviations

AtG – Atomic Energy Act (Atomgesetz – AtG)
billionmilliard
dena – German Energy Agency
EEG – Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act
EKFG – Energy and Climate Fund (In Germany)
NPP – nuclear power plant
PV – photovoltaics

 References

Related articles

 


How bloggers can grasp link building

September 1, 2012
1 Comment

By Galina Vitkova

Many bloggers, unfortunately including me, are not able to use effectively SEO for making their blogs more noticeable and visible on the Internet. One of the most important activities that helps realise it is link building.  So I have learned the topic for some time trying to choose something that makes me fitted for link building. And that’s why now I’d like to talk over competent link building for bloggers.  It is an opportunity for me to compose a valuable technical text and at the same time to better understand the process. I have primarily based my considerations on the article Link Building for Bloggers  by Gregory Ciotti published on 15 June 2012 and references given in this article.

According to the studied references the link building demands, first of all, solution of two main problems:

  1. Where to build links to
  2. How to actually get links.       

Link Building Guidance

Proper places to which your links should point

Best SEO practices recommend building links deep into a blog that includes posts, resource pages, and older content. Three prime places, which are advised bloggers to build links, seem to be feasible or practicable for me too:

1. Resource Pages

Resource pages are pages at the blog that explicate what your blog is about. Moreover, these pages are expected to demonstrate the best content of your blog.

So I have revamped the resource page About at my blog Why Technical English and now it comprises:

  • What is up Technical English and how it differs from general and Business English;
  • The review of significative content at the blog;
  • References on Technical English (last revision on 30 August 2012) useful for studying Technical English.

I have strived to get the resource page About target the most difficult keywords that have the most searches per month (use the Google Keyword Tool to figure this out), i.e. ‘Technical English“. The page is practically linked from all posts on the blog.

2. Blog Posts

The next place to build links is to individual blog posts. The keywords there according the mentioned recommendations may be less competitive, but they should be “long tail”. In general, blog posts are best suited for medium-to-light difficult keywords.

What to Do to Build and Attract Links to Blogs

There are a number of ways that bloggers are suggested both to build and attract links to their blogs and posts. I do not have own experience with link building, but I like three ways recommended in the referenced articles. The ways are as follows:

1. Creating widgets

Widgets, badges (for instance, the simple SEOmoz example, I have placed it at my blog), infographics, and other media that can be embedded by other people and also link back to you.

2. Round-Up posts

People are said to love round-up posts or review posts, and the posts are supposed to work for getting links in almost every niche.  Big round-ups that are niche specific are guaranteed to get mentioned, and more importantly, linked to. I am planning to prepare a round–up post about technical texts for studying Technical English. Needles to emphasize such a post should have a clean layout, simplicity, and focus on the content.

3. Crowdsourced Posts

Crowdsourced posts are posts that include the opinions of many knowledgeable experts, e.g. Social Media Examiner’s “Predictions for Social Media in 2012″. Basically, it is possible to get a bunch of short excerpts from experts’ estimations and put them all in one post.

 To your success!

PS: If you need, you can look up technical terms (used in this post) in Russian and Czech in the Internet English Vocabulary.      

 


Why I busy myself with keywords for Internet search engines

June 23, 2012
4 Comments

Composed by Galina Vitkova

Dear friends of Technical English,

I have three blogs, all of them are related to Technical English and all of them are not popular with search engines. So I decided to study the topic carefully to make search engines to catch sight of my blogs and send more visitors to them. Concurrently I desired to prepare an interesting technical text apposite for studying Technical English and discussing the issue.

First, I have tried to sum up current technical terms to make them quite clear for me and possible visitors of my blogs. Unfortunately I met some terms, which I could not find explanation for.

Further, I have again looked through how search engines work to be better at getting my blogs to the top of search results. Finally, I have chosen from studied materials those recommended steps that I am able to accomplish in order to put keyword in right places. I wonder if my new knowledge will attract more visitors to this post.

 

English: The three biggest web search engines

English: The three biggest web search engines (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Keywords basic terminology

A keyword is a word used to make a search. Elsewhere, instead of a keyword a query or a tag is used too. Of the billions of made searches you need to decide which ones you want your site to come top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for.

A keyphrase is a collection of words used to make a search (an equivalent to a keyword).

A target keyword is such a keyword which will bring your site to the top of a SERP. There are some online tools that can help you find and choose your target keywords.

A head keyword carries the highest volume of search engine visits. It is also called a primary keyword.

The long tail of keywords can be created by different combinations of head keywords and the number of such combinations is almost endless. The more numerous is your tail of keywords, the more is a number of your site visits by search engines. Furthermore, the long tail offers more potential for profit than the head ones.

A keyword niche is a group of keywords containing a single ‘seed’ keyword. So we target groups of keywords, i.e. a keyword niche

A primary keyword is a keyword that has the highest volume of search engine visits (it is searched for more frequently) and is the head keyword. It is the most popular keyword that has the most potential to attract traffic.

A secondary keyword has lower volumes (it is searched for less often).

Usually you choose one primary keyword, but you might also pick two or more secondary keywords.

How search engines work

Understanding how search engine work helps getting your website to the top of the SERPs. See e.g. the video on http://www.google.com/competition/howgooglesearchworks.html about how Google performs.

Every day Google answers more than one billion questions from people around the globe in 181 countries and 146 languages. 15% of the everyday searches have not been seen before.

Let´s drop a look at main steps of Google search activities.

Crawling. Google visits billions of website pages and finds more and more pages by following (crawling) the links it uncovers on previous billions of pages.

Indexing. When visiting website pages Google stores the information about every found page in the index. Google’s index is like a huge filing system for all the pages it finds.

English: This image shows you various ways of ...

Matching. When a searcher starts searching for anything, for any item Google searches its index for all the pages containing the item. Typically, Google will find thousands, even millions, of matches for a search.

Ranking. Google uses over 200 factors to decide what order to display the matching pages. Each matching page is scored for each of the 200-plus factors and the scores totaled. The total score is then used to rank the matching pages and decide the order the results are presented on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for (highest at the top).

Ranking factors include (for each page) for instance:

  • How often the keyword is used on the page
  • Is the page from a high quality website, or is it low quality or spam?
  • How many links from other pages and sites point to the page (and how important are those links)?
  • The percentage of searchers that click through (clickthrough rate – CTR) to each listed page.
  • The percentage of searchers that, once they have clicked through to a page, come straight back to the search results.
  • How much (and by whom) a page is referenced on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

The detailed guidance enlightenment explanation of the issue is given in http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/seo-made-simple.

PS: Find additional information about search engines in Search engine – essential information, December 29, 2011; Search Engines The presentation at the SKYPE conversation conference on 27th August 2008.

If you want keywords to bring you the highest effectiveness, put them in appropriate places

And now when you have chosen and set all keywords recommended by professionals you should put the keywords in appropriate places. There are many recommendations related to the issue. From what I have studied trying to attract search engines to my blogs I have learned it is mainly necessary to:

  • Include the keyword that you determined as a primary in the title of your writing (preferably near the beginning).
  • Describe in the description tag using both the primary and secondary keywords what the article or web page or a post is about.
  • Write the first paragraph of your article or web page as an overall summary including both primary and secondary keywords.
  • Map out the structure of the article, writing a heading and subheading that each contains keywords. Among others, it focuses your mind on what you really want to say, and the quality of your writing will improve.
mappa_blog

mappa_blog (Photo credit: francescopozzi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 

 


Who else will discuss PageRank calculations?

April 3, 2012
14 Comments

Composed by Galina Vitkova

Procedure of calculations

In the field of information retrieval on the web, PageRank has emerged as the primary (and most widely discussed) hyperlink analysis algorithm. But how it works still remains an obscurity to many in the SEO online community.

PageRanks-Example

Nevertheless, regarding to the importance of PageRank it worth trying to examine or analyse how it is calculated. The study is meaningful even if Google keeps the real algorithm of PageRank calculations secret.

In any case PageRank calculations are performed in compliance with The PageRank Algorithm

Let us consider the example consisting of  4 pages: Page A, Page B, Page C and Page D (or simply A, B, C, D having their PageRanks with the same notation). The pages link to each other as shown in the following picture. In the beginning the PageRanks for the pages are unknown, so we’ll just assign „1“ to each page.

 Linking of four pages

It means that the first calculation begins with PageRanks as follows:

  A = 1    B = 1    C = 1    D = 1

According to the rules about passing rank, which come out from the mentioned formula, each page passes a part of its PageRank to other pages. So, first we apply the dampening factor “d”, which ensures that a page cannot pass to another page its entire PageRank. Then the remaining value is divided by the number of links outcoming from this page. Finally the entire ranking is summed up and added to each page. In the first table below you see the value of PageRanks passing from one page to another:

A (2 links)  = 1*0.85 / 2 = 0.425
passes  0.425 to B
          0.425 to C
B (1 link)    = 1*0.85  = 0.85
passes  0.85  to  C
C (1 link)    = 1*0.85  = 0.85
passes  0.85  to  A
D (1 link)    = 1*0.85  = 0.85
passes  0.85  to  C

The resulting PageRanks are depicted in the following table below:

A = 1 + 0.85 = 1.85
B = 1 + 0.425 = 1.425
C = 1 + 0.425+0.85+0.85 = 3.125
D = 1

So, the next run of calculations begins with:

A = 1.85    B = 1.425    C = 3.125    D = 1

And after performing the same operations it comes to the result as follows:

A = 4.50625     B = 2.9975    C = 5.18625    D = 1

In practice it is necessary to do identical operations 50 to 100 times to guarantee the sufficient accuracy of the iterations.

Here needful to notice that in the first run of the calculations, Page C increases PageRank of Page A. In the next run Page C gets itself an increase in PageRank that is proportional to the new improved PageRank of Page A. It means Page C gets a proportion of its PageRank back to itself. It is PageRank feedback, an essential part of the way how PageRank works.

Links to and from your site

PageRank is the hardest factor to manipulate when optimising your pages. It is both difficult to achieve and more difficult to catch up with.

GoogleBot-byFML

When trying to optimise your PageRank the following factors should be taken into consideration:

  • Choice of the links you want to link to your site;
  • Selection of a site you want to link out to from your site;
  • Production of maximum PageRank feedback by changes of the internal structure and linkage of your pages.

When looking for links to your site, from a purely PageRank point of view, the pages with the highest Toolbar PageRank seem to be the best solution. Nonetheless, it is not truthful.

As more and more people try and get links from only high PageRank sites, it becomes less and less profitable. Thus sites that need to improve their PageRanks should be more receptive and exchange links with sites that have similar interests. Moreover, the number of links on the page linking to you will alter the amount of feedback, etc.

Therefore, maybe the best solution is getting links from sites that seem appropriate and have good quality, regardless of their current PageRank. The quality sites will either help your PageRank now, or will do so in the future.

To consider the best strategy concerning links out from your site, the general rule is: keep PageRank within your own site. Control of feedback by using the internal pages of your site, is much easier than control with the help of links to external pages. It means to make links out from a page on your site that has a low PageRank itself, and which also contains many internal links. Then, when linking out choose those external sites, which do not point to your page with a significant number of links.  It will get a better increase in PageRank, in particular due to the power of feedback. 

Placing some your links back into your site system rather than letting it go to external links improves PageRanks of your pages. That is why larger sites generally have a better PageRank than smaller ones.

References:

 

Dear friend of technical English,  
Do you want to improve your professional English?
Do you want at the same time to gain comprehensive information about the Internet and Web?

Subscribe to “Why Technical English“ clicking SIGN ME UP at the top of the sidebar 

 

 


Biofuels T o d a y

March 16, 2012
Leave a Comment

In today world biofuels steadily attract public attention. Continuing the topic discussed in Biofuels Reduce Emissions (part 1), Biofuels Reduce Emissions (part 2), B i o f u e l s – do they interest you? we present the further technical text on the same theme. The author of the following post Is bioethanol economic fuel? Ing. Jiří Souček, CSc., who participated on biofuel research in the Czech Republic, is responding to the situation with bioethanol in Ukraine, briefly described in the text immediately below the post.

Is bioethanol economic fuel?

By Jiří Souček

Bioethanol is definitely economic fuel in the countries, where it is produced from sugarcane  at price about 4 CZK/L. In the USA bioethanol is mainly made from corn and maize and its production is supported by the State. In the Czech Republic there are 3 large factories producing bioethanol. By the Czech legislation bioethanol is used as a complement to petrol in amount up to 4.2 %. 

In a continuous process, this USI bioethanol p...

Je bioetanol ekonomické palivo?

Jiří Souček

Bioetanol je jednoznačně ekonomické palivo v zemích, kde se vyrábí z cukrové třtiny v ceně asi 4 Kč/l.  V USA je výroba bioetanolu podporována státem a vyrábí se hlavně z obilí a kukuřice. V ČR jsou 3 velké závody na výrobu bioetanolu, který se používá jako přídavek do benzinu v množství 4,2 %, což je stanoveno zákonem.

English: Bio Ethanol on the Way A plant for ma...

Production and usage of biofuels (bioethanol, biodiesel, etc.) is proper:

  1. in the countries with agrarian overproduction;
  2. in the countries where usage of biofuels is compulsory or is subsidised through e.g. reduced or zero VAT.
Biopaliva (bioetanol, biodiesel aj.) je vhodné vyrábět a používat:  

  1. v zemích, kde je nadvýroba zemědělských produktů;
  2. v zemích, kde je povinnost použití biopaliv stanovená zákonem, nebo použití biopaliv dotováno například sníženou nebo nulovou DPH.
The application of biofuels is motivated:  

  1. By effort to reduce greenhouse gases;
  2. By farmland utilization and intensification of employment  in agriculture (development of countryside);
  3. By intention to depress all components of exhaust emissions including particulates and cancerogenic substances;
  4. By endevoir to diminish dependence on fossil fuels import (petroleum, natural gas).

 

Použití biopaliv je motivováno:Deutsch: Variante des Ford Focus Turnier mit B...

  1. Snahou o snížení emisí skleníkových plynů;
  2. Využitím zemědělské půdy a zlepšením zaměstnanosti v zemědělství (rozvoj venkova);
  3. Potřebou snížit exhalace všech složek výfukových plynů včetně kancerogenních látek;
  4. Snažením zmenšit závislost na dovozu fosilních surovin (ropa, zemní plyn).
Technical problems of bioethanol application as   a motor fuel, examined  in the mentioned Ukrainian article, have altogether been solved    as the fuels are widely used in EU countries, the USA, Brazil, etc. for about 20 years. Technické problémy použití bioetanolu jako motorového paliva, uvedené ve zmíněném ukrajinském článku, jsou v podstatě vyřešeny. Bioetanol totiž je ve velkém množství již 20 let používán v zemích EU, USA, Brazílii aj.
In my opinion the biofuels are just a transitional stage in the alternative motor propellants development and the future will belong to electrical motors and biomass as a row material in chemical and other branches of industry. Předpokládám, že biopaliva jsou přechodnou etapou ve vývoji pohonných hmot.  Budoucnost vidím v elektromotorech a využití biomasy jako suroviny v chemickém a jiném průmyslu.
By my calculations expenses on biodiesel production are 1.4 up to 1.8 times higher than those on motor oil. Biodiesel will be an item of competitiveness under present prices if the fuel oil production price increases more than 22 CZK/L (0.9 EUR/L), i.e. a retail price makes about 43 CZK/L (1.7 EUR/L). It corresponds to the petroleum price  about 150 USD/ mil. L.  Dle mých propočtů jsou náklady na biodiesel  přibližně 1,4 až 1,8 vyšší než na motorovou naftu. Biodiesel bude v ČR podle současných cenových relací konkurenceschopný, jestliže výrobní cena nafty vzroste na více než 22 Kč/l (0,9 EUR/l), tj. prodejní maloobchodní cena bude kolem 43 Kč/l (1,7 EUR/l). To odpovídá ceně ropy asi 150 USD/mil. l.

A brief outline of bioethanol perspectives  in Ukraine

Drown up by Galina Vítková using Биоэтанол. Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги by Andrey Stadnik, BFM Group Ukraine

Stručný přehled situace s bioetanolem na Ukrajině

Vypracovala Galina Vítková podle Andreye Stadnika, BFM Group Ukraine: Биоэтанол. Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги 

At present biofuels, primarily bioethanol are widely discussed in Ukraine. The public as well as state bodies demonstrate their interest in supporting bioethanol production in spite of arising  obstacles. The Ukrainian Ministry of economy development and trade is preparing the State programme      of stimulating production and application of alternative fuels. Since   January 2012 a range of laws on the same topic  is being developed. Everything is done assuming that bioethanol producers and users should have   some advantages as those in the USA, Brazil and EU countries. V současné době probíhá na Ukrajině hodně diskuzí o biopalivech, především o bioetanolu. Veřejnost a státní orgány projevují zájem výrobu bioetanolu podpořit i přes vyskytující se komplikace. Ministerstvo ekonomického rozvoje a obchodu Ukrajiny připravuje „Státní program stimulování výroby a použití alternativních druhů paliva“. Od ledna 2012 se připravuje řada zákonů na stejné téma. Vychází se z toho, že výrobce a spotřebitelé bioetanolu mají mít určitá zvýhodnění, jak je tomu v USA, Brazílii a zemích EU.
The Ukrainian biofuel market is at its beginnings. Ethyl alcohol or ethanol is produced in a small amount by two factories. Since the complement  of ethyl alcohol to petrol makes up to 10%, this composite fuel has the same VAT as ordinary petrol. Ukrajinský trh s biopalivem je v počátečním stádiu. Etanol vyrábí v malém množství jen dvě továrny. Vzhledem k tomu, že přídavek etanolu do benzinu tvoří až 10%, toto směsné palivo má stejné DPH jako obyčejný benzin.
There are also technical obstacles for massive usage of biofuels, the most important of which are as:

  1. Increase of electric conduction of petrol with bioethanol, which causes larger corrosion of a motor petrol tank, exhaust manifold, seals and other car components.
  2. Another technical problem concerns far higher temperature of bioethanol evaporation, which leads to troubles with firing and running  a motor while cold outdoor.
  3. But the most serious problem is increasing hygroscopicity of petrol with bioethanol, which causes great difficulties with the mixed fuel storing and transporting.       
Existují i technické překážky  pro masové použití biopaliva, z nichž nejdůležitější jsou tyto:

  1. Zvýšení elektrické vodivosti benzinu s bioetanolem, což vede k větší korozi nádrže auta, potrubí, těsnění a ostatního materiálu.
  2.  Dalším technickým problémem je značně vyšší teplota odpařování bioetanolu, což má za následek obtíže při zapalování motoru a rozjezdu auta  za nízkých teplot.
  3. Ale nejzávažnějším problémem je zvýšení hygroskopických vlastností benzinu s bioetanolem, které způsobuje velké nesnáze při  skladování a dopravě tohoto směsného paliva
From the economical viewpoint bioethanol production is characterised in such a way:

  1. Building a factory with productivity less than 60 kilotons (75 mil. L) is economically profitless.   
  2. Bioethanol production depletes the great amount of electricity.       
  3. Serious problems with sale of side products   of  bioethanol manufacture such as Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles (DDGS), carbonic acid gas, etc. also arise.
  4. Another great issue is row materials storing. Bioethanol in Ukraine is produced from corn and maize. The best solution is to buy them in necessary amount closely after picking harvest. For doing it large storage capacities need to be built.  
Podíváme-li se na ekonomickou stránku výroby bioetanolu, zjistíme, že:

  1. Výstavba továrny o výkonu menším než 60 tisíc t (75 mil.l) je ekonomicky nevýhodná.
  2. Výroba bioetanolu vyžaduje velkou spotřebu elektrické energie.
  3. Navíc vznikají problémy s odbytem vedlejších produktů výroby bioetanolu, například, výpalků (DDGS), oxidu uhličitého aj.
  4.  Dalším velkým problémem je skladování surovin. Bioetanol se na Ukrajině vyrábí z kukuřice a obilí. Tyto je nejlépe kupovat v potřebném množství ihned po sklizni úrody. To vyžaduje vybudování velkých skladovacích prostor. 

    Sustainable Feedstocks for Biofuels, Chemicals

Establishment of a vertically integrated holding, which would include all producing procedures  from plants growing up to sale, could be the best solution for these problems. At a rough estimate total expenses on such a holding erection may amount to a milliard EUR.

In author´s opinion such projects cannot be realised in Ukraine at present.  

Optimálním řešením může být vytvoření vertikálně integrovaného holdingu, jehož součástí jsou všechny výrobní procesy pěstováním  rostlin počínaje a odbytem konče. Celkové náklady na vybudování tohoto holdingu mohou odhadem činit až miliardu EUR.  

Podle autora se takovéto projekty nemohou  v současné době na Ukrajině realizovat. 

PS: The whole text of the article Биоэтанол. Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги is brought at http://www.bfm-ua.com.   PS: Plné znění článku Биоэтанол. Гладко было на бумаге, да забыли про овраги je uvedeno na http://www.bfm-ua.com.

What about you? What is your own opinion on bioethanol?

Write down a comment rather in English , but you may write it in Czech, too.

 A co Vy? Máte svůj vlastni  názor na bioetanol?

 Napište komentář, nejlépe anglicky, ale můžete napsat i česky.

NOTE

  • Kč  =  Czech crown (CZK)
  • DPH  =  VAT (value-added tax)
  • ČR  =  the Czech Republic

 


One way to understand PageRank

February 15, 2012
5 Comments
Dear friend of Technical English,
In the following text I am trying to explain how I understand the topic. After having studied different sources I have drawn up this post.
The post topic is important for every blogger who wants to have a quality blog with quality content which attracts search engines and visitors. On the other hand, it is a great opportunity for writing a lively technical text for studying Tech English online. So, study the topic, study Tech English and write comments, which is the best way for practising the language.
Find necessary terminology in the Internet English Vocabulary.
Galina Vitkova

 

PageRank

Is a link analysis algorithm used by the Google Internet search engine. The algorithm assigns a numerical weighting to each element of hyperlinked documents on the World Wide Web with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within it. According to the Google theory if Page A links to Page B, then Page A is saying that Page B is an important page. If a page has more important links to it, then its links to other pages also become more important.

Principles of PageRank

History

PageRank was developed at the Stanford University by Larry Page (thus the term PageRank is after him) and Sergey Brin as part of a research project about a new kind of a search engine. Now the “PageRank” is a trademark of Google. The PageRank process has been patented and assigned to the Stanford University, not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on this patent from the university. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.
The first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of the Google search engine, was published in 1998: shortly after, Page and Brin founded the company Google Inc. Even if PageRank now is one of about 200 factors that determine the ranking of Google search results, it continues to provide the basis for all of Google web search tools.
Since 1996 a small search engine called “RankDex” designed by Robin Li has already been exploring a similar strategy for site-scoring and page ranking. This technology was patented by 1999 and was used later by Li when he founded Baidu in China.

Some basic information about PageRank

There is some basic information, which is needed to know for understanding PageRank.
First, PageRank is a number that only evaluates the voting ability of all incoming (inbound) links to a page.
Second, every unique page of a site that is indexed in Google has its own PageRank.
Third, internal site links interact in passing PageRank to other pages of the site.
Forth, the PageRank stands on its own. It is not tied in with the anchor text of links.
Fifth, there are two values of the PageRank that should be distinguished:
a. PageRank which you can get from the Internet Explorer toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com);
b. Actual or real PageRank that is used by Google for calculation of ranking web pages.
PageRank from the toolbar (sometimes called the Nominal Pagerank) has value from zero to ten. It is not very accurate information about site pages, but it is the only thing that gives you any idea about the value. It is updated approximately once every three months, more or less, while the real PageRank is calculated permanently as the Google bots crawl the web finding new web pages and new backlinks.
Thus, in the following text the term actual PageRank is employed to deal with the actual PageRank value stored by Google, and the term Toolbar PageRank concerns the evaluation of the value that you see on the Google Toolbar.

This is how the PageRank works.

The Toolbar value is just a representation of the actual PageRank. While real PageRank is linear, Google uses a non-linear graph to show its representation. So on the toolbar, moving from a PageRank of 2 to a PageRank of 3 takes less of an increase than moving from a PageRank of 3 to a PageRank of 4.
This is illustrated by a comparison table (from PageRank Explained by Chris Ridings). The actual figures are kept secret, so for demonstration purposes some guessed figures were used:

If the actual PageRank is between

The Toolbar Shows

0.00000001 and 5
6 and 25
25 and 125
126 and 625
626 and 3125
3126 and 15625
15626 and 78125
78126 and 390625
390626 and 1953125
1953126 and infinity
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

 

The PageRank Algorithm

Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin have published two different versions of their PageRank algorithm in different papers.

First version (so called the Random Surfer Model) was published on the Stanford research paper titled The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine in 1998:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Where PR(A) is the PageRank of page A.
d is a damping factor, which is set between 0 and 1, nominally it is set to 0.85.
PR(T1) is the PageRank of a site page pointing to page A.
C(T1) is the number of outgoing links on page T1.

In the second version of the algorithm, the PageRank of page A is given as:

PR(A) = (1-d) / N + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

Where N is the total number of all pages on the Web.

The first model is based on a very simple intuitive concept. The PageRank is put down as a model of user behaviour, where a surfer clicks on links at random. The probability that the surfer visits a page is the page PageRank. The probability that the surfer clicks on one link at the page is given by the number of links at the page. The probability at each page that the surfer will get bored and will jump to another random page is the damping factor d.

The second notation considers PageRank of a page the actual probability for a surfer reaching that page after clicking on many links. The PageRanks then form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all pages PageRanks will be one.

As for calculating PageRank the calculations by means of its first model are easier to compute because the total number of web pages is disregarded.

References:

 

Dear friend of technical English,  

Do you want to improve your professional English?

Do you want at the same time to gain comprehensive information about the Internet and Web?

Subscribe to “Why Technical English”  clicking   RSS – Posts

 


Next Page »

    May 2013
    M T W T F S S
    « Apr    
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    2728293031  

    Blog Stats

    • 185,567 hits

    Subscribe with BlogLines

    Translatorsbase

    Dynamic blog-up

    technorati

    Join the discussion about

    Seomoz

    I <3 SEO moz
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 946 other followers