As Canada’s capital, the City of Ottawa has benefited from several comprehensive land use planning exercises since the early 1900s. Early plans carried out by the federal government were led by Prime Ministers who, in wanting to beautify the region, initiated long range plans that spanned both sides of the Ottawa River, providing land use goals and guidance for what are today the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. The planning context changed through the 1970s, however. The federal government played a lesser role in land use planning as regional and area municipal governments grew and an expanding technically trained staff developed local plans. It was in the absence of a strong regional plan aimed at controlling outward expansion that there was rapid growth of low density suburban communities outside of the National Capital Commission greenbelt. Today, planning policy in Ottawa recognizes the environmental, social, and economic benefits of compact development and encourages by, in part, directing growth to the existing built-up area. Unfortunately, residential intensification efforts in the City have been disappointing. While the City has developed a variety of policies and programs to encourage and support residential intensification, it appears site level constraints have prohibited it to occur in a significant way. This research is concerned with identifying weaknesses in the City of Ottawa’s current growth management strategy. The purpose of this research is to provide recommendations that can be used to strengthen Ottawa’s growth management policies and programs to more effectively achieve the compact urban form desired by the municipality. The findings demonstrate that there is some level of disconnect between what recent literature and key informant interviews identify as the barriers to residential intensification at the site level and the motherhood principles for compact development at the municipal level. More specifically, barriers can be summarized as community and political resistance, regulatory challenges, and policy vs. market realities. It is recommended that the City of Ottawa adopt a strengthened strategy that establishes achievable growth and intensification targets; encourages community support for compact development; considers growth over the longer term and with a regional perspective; and is advocated by strong leaders. Only in this way can the City create an improved strategy that will, like earlier plans, make Ottawa once again a proud leader in urban planning efforts in Canada.

This thesis addresses the future of sustainable energy distribution and transportation in the United States. Predictions of future energy and transportation demands promote localized energy as the most likely situation. Existing proposals outlining the benefits of decentralized energy production fail to engage architecture. Cities will require new architectural typologies that can integrate new energy infrastructure in the city. Los Angeles, the archetype of the decentralized American city, is introduced as a case study. The city is examined at multiple scales for the integration of a decentralized electricity network and an efficient transportation infrastructure. Siting the proposed facilities capitalizes on new and existing transportation infrastructures and local energy resources. The new electricity-transportation infrastructure is adapted to a decentralized network functioning on principles of ecosystems and energy economics at an urban scale. Energy storage is paired with multi-modal transportation to develop new architectural and urban typologies. This enables the decentralized urban proposal to function as a network exhibiting mutually beneficial characteristics.

In recent years, there has been significant pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to achieve higher efficiency and to integrate greater amounts of renewable energy resources in energy system. Governments at all levels have recognized the environmental impacts of the energy sector, as well as the ways in which this sector is closely-linked to a range of economic issues (e.g., industrial development, inflationary prices and local economic development). In general, every effort has been made to cope with the challenges in providing a sustainable energy solution for achieving the goals. Even though the concept of “Smart Grid” has recently been highlighted in the electricity sector to improve efficiency of energy use and to reduce greenhouse gases to achieve business goals, the driving initiatives for generating a Smart Grid are straightforward and its scope and functions differ from a Smart Energy Network (SEN) which has a broader boundary and more components. A comprehensive concept of SEN beyond Smart Grid is presented to effectively integrate energy systems which can not only cover available energy resources but also address sustainability issues. The availability of new technologies for utilizing the renewable energy such as solar, wind and biomass, and reducing the carbon footprint of fossil fuels by including natural gas within an integrated energy network provides a base for better conservation of energy usage and providing a cleaner environment. Moreover, the new energy carriers such as hydrogen and sustainable natural gas integrated into cogeneration systems should be taken into account when such a network is developed. A cogeneration system is a promising solution for effectively supplying energy to district consumers for high density urban environment. In this thesis, a new community-scale cogeneration system is modeled using TRNSYS (Transient System Simulation) software, which enables analysis of transient characteristics of cogeneration and to investigate critical factors which should be considered for successful integration into a SEN. This thesis focuses on defining what a Smart Energy Network is, its functions and the critical criteria of demonstrating and validating this concept, and developing a model for cogeneration system according to the concept of Smart Energy Network.

The topic of smart grids has become one of the most important research arenas recently. Spurred by the urges to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for several environmental and economic reasons, researchers have written many treatises on this topic. M. He, S. Murugesan and J. Zhang suggested in their article, "Multiple Timescale Dispatch and Scheduling for Stochastic Reliability in Smart Grids with Wind Generation Integration", a new pricing and scheduling model to exploit the wind (or any other stochastic) energy to the fullest extent. I studied this model, and from my experiments, I found a defect. In this thesis, I try to evaluate this model. Firstly, I present it with detailed proofs of the main results. Secondly, I explain the experiments and simulations I did. Then, I analyze the results to show the defect I discovered. Finally, I suggest a solution for that defect, and I point out the advantages of that model.

This dissertation investigates the impact of metropolitan growth patterns and policies on both intra-regional spatial differentiation and the decline of inner-ring suburbs by identifying a multi-ring metropolitan structure in four metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Portland, using longitudinal Census data from 1970 to 2000. The findings of this research confirmed that intra-regional spatial differentiation increased over time and showed that the inner-ring suburbs in the four metropolitan areas were increasingly vulnerable to socioeconomic decline regardless of their growth patterns and policies. In contrast, the downtowns and some parts of the inner city showed gradual recovery from the deterioration patterns of the last several decades. The outer-ring suburbs continued to thrive, drawing most of the new population and housing development. This dissertation also explored the association between metropolitan growth patterns and policies and the extent of spatial differentiation and socioeconomic disparity in the subareas. Analyses found that strong decentralization trends are associated with increases in intra-regional spatial differentiation and socioeconomic disparity, while urban containment policies are associated with their reduction. However, despite its strong urban containment policies, the Portland region exhibited a clear pattern of inner-ring suburban decline, which suggests that the inner-ring suburbs require local initiatives directed toward revitalization. In conclusion, this research has shown that excessive development at the urban fringe is associated with the abandonment of the blighted inner city and more importantly, in the decline of the inner-ring suburbs. The inner-ring suburbs, with their existing valuable assets, should be fertile grounds for smart growth strategies. Moreover, the central city and outer-ring suburbs have a vital mission to save and invigorate the inner-ring suburbs, as they represent the primary link and conduit to all the surrounding areas of a metropolitan region. Only by recognizing the interdependence of all the areas and by applying sound, holistic policies can the decision-making entities of the government ensure the survival and future stability of the metropolitan areas.

In the rapid development of mobile communication industry, mobile phone converted from general voice-guided to smart phones, tablet PC and other handheld, which through multi-functional integration of operating system and value-added services, is changing the whole market demand. The main purpose of this thesis is to provide the competitive strategies for the mobile communication industry, mainly from system operators, channel and mobile equipment manufacturer, analyzed by SWOT, industry profiles and trends to evaluate mutual relations of valued chain and digital convergence. With the literature review and the investigations of the mobile communication industry, practitioners and experts in Taiwan, we establish the following strategies: 1.Smart phones and tablet PC in the future development of the market with high growth opportunities, integration between system platform and hardware/software, and the user interface and application services will enable higher value added in the industry. 2.Mobile equipment manufacturer develops enhanced features to networking function peripheral products, coupled with the popularity of mobile networks, to make mobile devices more functionality expanded. 3.The role of channel needs to create differentiated service, integrated telecommunications services and market information, as well as professional and dedicated service to the channel to exert influence on the market. 4.The system operator, channel and mobile equipment manufacturer in close cooperation between the three is bound to become the mainstream business model. Integrated strategy of digital convergence and application service is mainly required to long-term growth and development.

The objective of this research is to study smart home network systems and the application of Lab VIEW to develop man machine interface (MMI) so that traditional instrument panels can be replaced with virtual panels to reduce the consumption of hardware resources. For energy efficiency, the focus is on using MATLAB¡¦s fuzzy toolbox as the computing center and applying it to both lighting and air-conditioning systems. This thesis also looks into the use of Lab VIEW¡¦s CGI tools to develop remote monitoring functions as well as embedding the network related syntax into the Web pages. The user not only can use his/her computer equipment, but also their mobile devices (cell phone, PDA, pad, etc.) to link up to the networks and conduct remote monitoring, which enhances convenience and security. Hardware using wired control (PCI, Ethernet) and wireless control (ZigBee) could monitor the information from the components and transmit it to the computer for processing using the aforementioned method, and finally send it to the control end to complete the monitoring process. Choosing ZigBee wireless control is because it is more energy saving and network friendly than other wireless devices.It will have were opportunities to be used in home applications in the future. This thesis also integrates a fuzzy control for the power consumption. Test results show that adding fuzzy control can reduce power consumption. Besides using computers for remote monitoring functions, cell phones and pads were used as well.

With the smart handheld devices and the rapid development of network applications, data exchange between devices as the first problem. There are many ways the information can be transmitted from one end to the other end, but which one is the best way? This paper examines several common data package method, compare their features, advantages and disadvantages, and to test the effectiveness of the data package, the size of data packaged, the package needed time. In order to prove the practicality of packages, designed a "file synchronization system," using Protocol Buffer as data exchange formats, implementing the Android system.

This thesis develops a power line carrier(PLC) communication module using FSK modulation technology by integration of PLC chip, with various hardware circuits such as DSP, signal coupling and amplifier circuits, filter. The communication performance and conduction EMI tests and executed for the communication module developed. The PLC module is then applied for appliance control of commercial customers to fulfill the demand response function for energy conservation by reducing the summer peak loading. Besides sending the load control command from central station in the smart grid, the power consumption of various appliances can also be collected and transmitted back to the control station via two way communication with the PLC communication module. Finally, the broadband PLC (BPLC) is applied for the CCTV supervision in system to support asset management of distribution room to prevent the power equipment from steal. With the remote control of light brightness and CCTV lens with high data transmission rate provided, the communication performance of PLC can therefore be verified in this study.

In the next decade, electric vehicles (EV) will be heading to the road in a fast speed. Utility company would have no control over the future EV charging points or stations, and no direct control over periods and frequency of EV charging that could cause great effects to the existing distribution network operations if not well planned. Distribution system operation and expansion planning would become more complicated due to the high degree of uncertainty of the EV charging demand. Markov model is used in this study to calculate the probabilities and locations of EV charging. To mitigate the loading and voltage quality problem, feeder reconfiguration is proposed. The problem is formulated as an stochastic programming program with an objective function of minimizing total switching and system loss costs, and subject to radial structure of the distribution network and security constraints. The problem is solved by a binary particle swarm optimization technique. Test results indicate that feeder reconfiguration can be exercised to match loading patterns of different types of feeders (residential, commercial and industrial) with various stochastic charging scenarios, and consequently, reduce the impacts of EV charging and optimize the use of the existing network.