The goal of this project was to create a web-based, crowd-sourced, correlational database, that easily allowed users to submit objects and receive correlated objects as results. The webservice was created in the web development languages of HTML, CSS, PHP and Javscript, with MySQL to handle the database. Simultaneous development was kept in check with the aid of the source code management system GIT. Upon completion, the service contained several HTML-views, the ability to add and rate objects, a per-object dedicated page with information parsed from Wikipedia.org, and a view with objects ranked in accordance to the preferences specific to the current user. Roughly a month after the beginning of development, the website was publicly launched and promoted in order to collect data, and improvements were added to the website as needed. Two weeks after the public launch, the collected data was measured and analyzed. The algorithm proved effective and scalable, especially with the introduction of tags and simultaneous computation of object features.

The necessity for clean and sustainable energy has shifted the energy sector’s interest in renewable energy sources. Photovoltaics (PV) is the most popular renewable energy source because the sun is ubiquitous. However, several discrepancies exist in a PV system when implemented for real-world applications. Among several other existing problems related to Photovoltaics, in this work, we deal with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) under Partial Shading (PS) conditions. MPPT is a mechanism formulated as an optimization problem adjusting the PV to deliver the maximum power to the load. Under full insolation conditions, varying solar panel temperatures, and different loads MPPT problem is a convex optimization problem. However, when the PV’s surface is partially shaded, multiple power peaks are created in the power versus voltage (P-V) curve making MPPT non-convex.